QML plugins are not imported when using CMake and static Qt

Erulission

Hello!

Recently I have been struggling with CMake & static Qt build.
Consider a very simple application written with QML:

import QtQuick 2.14
import QtQuick.Controls 2.14
import QtQuick.Window 2.14

Window {
  visible: true
  width: 640
  height: 480
  title: qsTr("Hello World")

  Button {
    anchors.centerIn: parent
    text: "Button :)"
  }
}

When I build this application using qmake everything works fine. I can run my app without any troubles, everything is packed inside executable. However, using CMake for the same project produces executable that not contain qml plugins (Error in runtime: QQmlApplicationEngine failed to load component qrc:/main.qml:1:1: module "QtQuick" plugin "qtquick2plugin" not found

My CMake file:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.5)

project(cmake_sample LANGUAGES CXX)

set(CMAKE_INCLUDE_CURRENT_DIR ON)
set(BUILD_SHARED_LIBS OFF)

set(CMAKE_AUTOUIC ON)
set(CMAKE_AUTOMOC ON)
set(CMAKE_AUTORCC ON)

set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 11)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)


find_package(Qt5 COMPONENTS Core Quick REQUIRED)

add_executable(cmake_sample
    main.cpp
    qml.qrc
)

target_compile_definitions(cmake_sample
  PRIVATE $<$<OR:$<CONFIG:Debug>,$<CONFIG:RelWithDebInfo>>:QT_QML_DEBUG>)
target_link_libraries(cmake_sample
  PRIVATE Qt5::Core Qt5::Quick)

To fix this I have to manually import & link all required QML plugins. While it solves the problem, it's very bulky on larger projects. I have the impression that these plugins should be automatically imported (others, like imageformats are ...)

Question: Is it intended in CMake or it is a bug? If it is intended, is there any correct and elegant solution to properly configure CMake project against static Qt?

Cajus Pollmeier

Had the same issue and got the hint that you can do:

find_package(Qt5QmlImportScanner REQUIRED)
qt5_import_qml_plugins(yourapp)

qtop

This fixed it for me: https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtqml-cmake-qt5-import-qml-plugins.html

I hope it helps.