Help me understand the Qt Creator code.

[SeedOfLife]

I'm new to Qt. Im overly impressed by the styling of Qt Creator and would like to understand how it works.
I've downloaded the source package and managed to compile it using Visual Studio 2008.
Is there a documentation which describe the architecture of Qt Creator that I could use to decipher the code ?
Or is it all breakpoint analysis (so far this hasn't helped me much) ?

thanx,
SeedOfLife

[Zlatomir]

I didn't really understand what are you trying to ask.

You want to switch Visual Studio IDE with Creator?
Then "here":http://doc.qt.nokia.com/qtcreator-2.0.1/index.html is Qt Creator manual (version 2.0.1)
In the "first page of documentation":http://doc.qt.nokia.com/ you can find the links to other versions (plus qt documentation)

You want to use Qt Creator (IDE) with Visual C++ compiler?
I don't have an answer for that... since i don't see the point, you use VC++ compiler if you like the VS IDE (the more performance i think is a myth)

Or you want to learn Qt framework? Want to understand the "concepts" Qt uses (like signal-slot, etc...)"
"This page":http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7/qt-basic-concepts.html is pure gold (just my opinion ;) ) or you can use a book about Qt

[DenisKormalev]

AFAIK there are no documentation about QtCreator architecture, but this architecture is more or less easy to understand. As first step I will recomend look into small plugins and understand their work.

2Zlatomir, msvc compiler generates more optimized code in some circumstances. We had some tests at previous project and switched from mingw to msvc at windows platform because of performance reasons.

[Zlatomir]

2 Denis: Yes, i didn't expressed very clear, that is normal behavior, since GCC (MingW) has different optimizations then VC++.
So in particular cases one or the other can generate faster code, but in general there is no rule for that.

//i don't want to start an compiler war here, both are very good C++ compilers and together with the Intel one, are in top three... but there is no way saying which is number one without being subjective.

[SeedOfLife]

Hi thanx a lot for the replies so far.
My question was about trying to explore the source code for Qt Creator, trying to see how it has been put together. This was the reason I was looking for an architecture document on Qt Creator. Sorry if I led you into any confusions.

@Denis, I thought there'd be a document like that but sadly there exists no such document officially written by the creators of Qt Creator. However I happened to come across "this":http://www.vcreatelogic.com/downloads/files/Writing-Qt-Creator-Plugins.pdf which is somewhat relevant I think. I wonder how you say the source code is more or less easy to understand. Maybe for someone with expertise it could be. But for an absolute beginner on Qt, I fail to comprehend the complexity.

If you do find any more materials on Qt Creator pls do post them here.

[giesbert]

Hi SeedOfLife,

If you are an absolute beginner, a full blown IDE is never the best to start. First you should start understanding simple examples, which are meant to show things. QtCreator is no simple example, it's a complex beast with (I'm pretty sure) more than only 2 weeks of work within.

If you are really that beginner, start at the "tutorial":http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7/tutorials.html and "example":http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7/all-examples.html pages

[tobias.hunger]

The architecture is pretty straight forward: A tiny core that manages plugins:-)

The stuff that makes this a bit complex are of course all the plugins that do all the functionality. Describing each of them would be a rather long post, so what are you interested in the most?

[sfabry]

Indeed starting learning Qt with the analysis of creator code will not be the easiest way :p but it's a challenge !

I also started with the document you mention from vcreatelogic then simply generated the docs from the QtCreator source code. The code is not (yet ?) fully documented, most important things are.

After that the only way to continue (to my understanding) is to play around with it, writing your own plugins, trying your own stuff.

Have fun