Learning Path for Qt

Hi all

I have some general knowledge of C++ picked up 20 yrs ago in programming courses. I have done some javascript, php and sql, and bits of BASIC and VisualBasic. I am trying to learn Qt 'from the ground up'. The examples and tutorials I have found are mostly for versions <5.2 and suffer from an almost complete lack of explanation. In the 'textedit' example there is a line - #include "ui_textfinder.h" - wherein a file (ui_textfinder.h) is included that doesn't appear to exist and there is no real explanation of where this came from or where it is, just some vague reference to possibly being auto-generated by uic. And that's just an example of what I've been running into everywhere - or just plain outdated.

So my question is this: Where do I go to start at "Hello World" and work up from there with clear and unambiguous explanations of what's going on? A good text? I have "An Introduction to Design Patterns in C++ with Qt - 2nd ed" and it's like What? - this is not for beginners! Up-to-date on-line tutorials?

Any help would be greatly appreciated (I've been swimming round and round in circles for months).

This is exactly what you need - http://www.voidrealms.com/index.php?r=tutorial/index
In there, under Language tab, there's a dropdown box (we call it QComboBox in Qt), select the option Qt.
For any doubts related to Qt classes, check the documentation.

Thank you. Looks good. :)

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In the 'textedit' example there is a line - #include "ui_textfinder.h" - wherein a file (ui_textfinder.h) is included that doesn't appear to exist and there is no real explanation of where this came from or where it is, just some vague reference to possibly being auto-generated by uic.

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This page of the Qt documentation might answer your question: https://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.0/qt...a-ui-file.html
In my opinion the documentation of Qt is good (comparing to other libraries).
This tutorial is worth a look as well: http://www.digitalfanatics.org/projects/qt_tutorial/

Thank you all for your help and suggestions. You are probably right about the docs being pretty good - they certainly are extensive, but they really aren't for 'beginners'; sort of like unix man pages. I'm sure once one gets a better understanding of the fundamentals they are invaluable.

This might be drifting a little off topic but as it's already been discussed: Is the include file ui_foo.h 'persistent' or is it a 'virtual' file created temporarily by uic? The way I undersand it looks like uic generates the file 'in memory' which is then used further down the build chain and then destroyed after the build is completed. I only say this because I can find no evidence of it in the project folder or on my hard drive.

TIA

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The way I undersand it looks like uic generates the file 'in memory' which is then used further down the build chain and then destroyed after the build is completed

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You are right, uic generates ui_*.h files during compilation (using information from *.ui forms), but "ui_" files are not removed from disk - except if you call "make clean" or "make distclean". You can choose a directory for ui_*.h files by setting "UI_DIR=path" in .pro file.

Found it in the 'build' directory.

The ui_*.h file(s) are generated from the *.ui files during building your application. You are not writing the ui_*.h files. The file(s) are not removed from the disk after building the app. They are used for compiling (C++) your app. They are registered in the makefile and redone every time the corresponding *.ui file change.

You need to #include the the ui_*.h file(s) in your code, even if "they do exist" to trigger an "on demand" building them. The files contain C++ classes made from the *.ui files.

As to Qt: there are 4 books on the web (PDF files) which help greatly:

(1) Blanchette, Summerfield - C++ GUI programming with Qt4. A good starting point.
(2) Molkentin - A Book of Qt4. Another good starting point.
(3) Ezust, Ezust - An Introduction to Design Patterns in C++ with Qt. A basic knowledge of Qt classes is helpful when reading this.
(4) Summerfield - Advanced Qt programming. Not a "starting point". A very good book but read later.