QtDesigner bug

brookbot

This is probably more of a documentation issue, but I'm trying to report it as a bug, because it has been a trip wire that has tripped me up multiple times now as well as others and I don't understand the particular choices made. If there is a better forum, category pls let me know.

"I never understood why they do this. First in documentation its called QtDesigner... but in reality its "designer" and its installed in an obscure path making it difficult to find unless your the one who installed Qt and you remember all that."

I know they are selling an IDE now, Qt Design Studio..., but designer is simpler and satisfies the immediate need without getting into a complex IDE. For example, someone just dumped some .ui files on my desk along with some python code and I need to make a quick fix, or add a simple feature.

Searching thru the Qt and QtDesginer documentation does not easily reveal that:

the app name is "designer" not "qtdesigner", so searching the system for that name reveals nothing.
Where its actually installed.
How to run it from the command line. All the documentation revolves around launching the app from a GUI environment, mainly windows, Focuses on the new IDE/Project manager garbage and seems to forget that some of use prefer to do things from a command line and still need that info and frankly expect it to be upfront and quickly accessible. I don't want to read the entire IDE manual just to refresh my memory on how to launch "designer".

ChrisW67

@brookbot said in QtDesigner bug:

the app name is "designer" not "qtdesigner", so searching the system for that name reveals nothing.

The executable file is designer on Linux (designer.exe on Windows) the application is called Qt Designer. This is no different to the situation with the application Microsoft Word and its executable name winword.exe. Hardly a bug.

Where its actually installed.

It is installed wherever the person that packaged it chose to put it, and there can be more than one version on any one machine (by design). I trust you can see that this makes it impossible to document in one consistent way.

The Ubuntu-packaged Qt creates a file that launches Qt Designer in the standard location /usr/bin/designer and a desktop icon that launches Qt Designer. Find the icon and look at what it executes: there's your command line.

If you use the Qt online installer then the entire install, including Qt Creator and any Qt libraries you install, goes where you tell the installer to put it (once again variable, let's call that location {QT}). Under {QT} is a consistent structure regardless of platform:

{QT}
  + Tools
    + QtCreator
      + bin
        - qtcreator
  + 5.15.2 (Qt library  version)
    + gcc_64  (i.e. the compiler and bit-ness, there may be more than one)
      + bin
        - qmake
        - designer
                - uic
        - rcc
        - ...
  + 6.3.1
    + gcc_64  (i.e. the compiler and bit-ness, there may be more than one for a given version)
      + bin
        - qmake
        - designer
        - ...
...

How to run it from the command line. ... rant removed ... some of use prefer to do things from a command line and still need that info and frankly expect it to be upfront and quickly accessible. I don't want to read the entire IDE manual just to refresh my memory on how to launch "designer".

Yes, the documentation focuses on the first-time user and the Qt Creator tool as the path of least resistance to a working application. Qt Creator integrates many of the parts that historically had a standalone existence (and still do).
That is also not a bug.

It is not that difficult:

Write yourself a note and stick it on your monitor.
Or look at what the desktop icon executes
Or put an alias in your .bashrc file, or have the person that installed Qt put one in the system bashrc. Something like one of these:

alias qtdesigner=/usr/bin/designer
alias qtdesigner=/opt/Qt/6.3.1/gcc_64/bin/designer

Or create a shell script or Windows cmd script that launches designer when you type qtdesigner
Or recognise that designer is in the same location as qmake for the corresponding Qt library.

Want to suggest an improvement to the documentation? Go here and make sure you cover all the bases.