Qt on Visual Studio

[kratosaurion7]

Hi, this is my first post so I'll try to be on topic and I hope this is the right board.

I'm trying to setup Qt on my Visual Studio 2013 and I have a few questions. I'm by no mean an expert in C++ or Qt (didn't even do a first project on it yet).

On the one hand, I am wondering what is keeping me from doing a normal C++ project, including the Qt library and start coding with the framework. I don't want to do Qml or any Qt specific feature. I saw a tutorial over at "here":https://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/qtwidgets-mainwindows-application-example.html and I just can't get my project to work with the library at all. I didn't go through qmake or anything. I was hoping it would work without it. Why not ?

[Jeroentjehome]

Hi, first of all this is more a tools forum post, but here goes:
Qt does a lot more then a simple library will do. The best features not commonly available in libraries are the QObject class stuff. The signal/slots and class naming etc is just brilliant! You need the qmake to support that stuff. Because almost all Qt classes (I even believe all classes) use the QObject, you must run the qmake if you use Qt libraries.
If you want the plugin for VS2013 you need to pay for your Qt plugIn from Digia. My advice is to setup QtCreator and MinGw (which comes with debugger already installed) and start exploring the possibilities of Qt and then try and setup your Qt plugin in MSVC.
Greetz