How to deploy?

[aash_89]

Hello,
I am new to Qt.
I made my first application.
It runs when i say Run in Qt.

Now i am trying to deploy it, but dont know how to.

I am using Qt Creator 2.0
Based on Qt 4.7.0 (32bit)
But i am running a 64bit machine(Windows 7), will that be a problem?

Please guide me how to.

I saw one of the help files, i tried doing it in command prompt, not sure how to do it, nor am i aware of what miniGW is.

Thank You
Aashish

[Lykurg]

Please guide me how to.

Sure, take the docs and read the articles about deploying an application!

[aash_89]

Hmm, Now why din i think of doing that?

Ofcourse i did, After wich im here.

Some one please help,.

Thankx
Aashish

[wysota]

So what exactly did you read and what exactly didn't you understand there?

nor am i aware of what miniGW is.

It's MinGW and I'm sure if you enter the term in your favourite web search engine, something relevant will pop up.

[aash_89]

no wonder only 3 have thanked you.

[wysota]

no wonder only 3 have thanked you.

Really? Hmm... I thought it is I who thanked others 3 times.

Don't expect us to give you specific answers if you are not asking specific questions.

[Lykurg]

no wonder only 3 have thanked you.

I am not sure if it is a good strategie to affront the people which should help you. But anyway wysota's question remains: What pages about deploying have you read in the documentation?

[aash_89]

I am sorry.

I am very new to Qt and programming, so i am trying to learn.

i have created an application.

now i want to make it an installer pakage to use it on other computers which dont have Qt.

i read the documentation.

i am not aware of what is nmake , or anything is.

as in qt creator, if i just say run, it does all of it automatically.

so i was wondering if to create an installer pakage a similar option exists.

in the documentation, it says, go to command prompt and change directory to Qt. Then

type

cd C:\path\to\Qt
configure -static <any other options you need>

when i do this, it says, system cannot find path specified, so i am stuck in the first step itself!

[wysota]

Where are your Qt sources installed? Please take time to answer this question -- I'm not asking where is your Qt Creator installed. As for make, nmake and similar tools -- these are tools not specific to Qt, so it's really out of scope of this forum to teach you about them. They are very popular programming tools tied to specific toolchains, so Google knows much about them. By the way -- you can't just read one page and expect every possible explanation to every possible question to be there. I suggest you first learn how a compilation process in general looks like and only then focus on deployment.

[squidge]

in the documentation, it says, go to command prompt and change directory to Qt. Then

type

cd C:\path\to\Qt
configure -static <any other options you need>

when i do this, it says, system cannot find path specified, so i am stuck in the first step itself!

You didn't actually type the above, did you?

[aash_89]

i replaced path with the path to my project file, and did not type the second line

[john_god]

aash_89, Welcome to the wonderful world of Qt.
Beeing a newbie I can see all the enthusiasm about running and deploying your first Qt app.
So, forget about configuring Qt statically for now, some say you should not deploy apps like that unless you have a Qt commercial license. If you have tried to run your app from the windows explorer and it doesnt work you should add qt dll's directory to your system path. This would be something like:

c:\qt\2010.04\qt\bin;c:\Qt\2010.04\bin

(change it acording to your Qt version/ dll's directory)

To run your app.exe in another computer you will need at least, from that first dir, qtcore4.dll, qtgui4.dll, mingwm10.dll and libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll. You could put all this file in the same directory in other computer and that should work. You can also use a third party software to do a more fancy thing like a setup.exe file that would do a next-next-finnish deployment, much more prettier. I personnaly use Install Creator (google it) they have a free version, very easy to use, but there's plenty others programs. That's it.
Then you will show it to your friends and they will say: “Hey, aash_89 did a very cool app it looks very professional“. (that was what my math teacher, who didnt know nothing about programming, said, when I made a Floyd algorithm program lololol )

By the way Wysota and Lykurg are nice guys who have helped hundreds and thousands not 3 (lol). The thing is that at some point some people just would come to the forum asking code snippets, without any effort to learn, expecting the forum to do there work. Also think they are triyng to tell you that the best way to learn Qt, and programming, is being sell thaugh. This means readind a lot of books and tutorials.But I also think that this could be some what difficult at newbie stage and sometimes, frustating. So please let me know if something is unclear to you.

By the way, I advise to deploy the dll files to yourapp.exe current directory and not to windows\system directory. This could save you a lot of errors with diffrent dll versions, (the famous dllhell)

[wysota]

i replaced path with the path to my project file, and did not type the second line

The line says "path\to\Qt" not "path\to\your\Qt\project". You want to rebuild Qt, not rebuild your project, right?

[aash_89]

Thank you for your reply.
I understand i was wrong initially.
After a bit of searching aroung i realized that the easier way to do it, is to just use the release option and put the necessary dll files!!
before which i tried to build Qt statically, and it was too complicated and went horribly wrong, i had to reinstall Qt!!!

I have my application up and running!! Its nice to have replies like yours because its very encouraging.

I have this problem now.

I am displaying images on my Qt application, on my system which has Qt it works fine, but when i use in on other systems, it does not display jpeg images!

after a bit of searching i found that, i needed to create a folder imageformats in the current directory and include the qjpeg4.dll in it.

but its still not displaying the jpeg images.

any ideas?

Thankx
Aashish

[Lykurg]

Then your plugin is still not at the right position. When I remember right, the folder imageformats also have to be in a folder called plugins or you set a custom plugin path in your application.

[aash_89]

The forlder imageformats is in qt\bin.

there is nothing mentioned about plugins.

in my project file, i tried QTPLUGINS += qjpeg.

the QTPLUGINS did not highlight, nor did doing this have the images displayed.

[Lykurg]

The folder imageformats is in qt\bin.

Not on my machine, and you never know what extra paths Qt sets internally. But you have to create the directory plugins for your application, unless you set a custom path.

there is nothing mentioned about plugins.

There is: /path/to/Qt/qt/plugins. You probably using the wrong libraries. You have to take the libraries from the subdirectory qt! The bin in the root directory is only for creator.

See http://doc.trolltech.com/4.6/deployment-windows.html!

in my project file, i tried QTPLUGINS += qjpeg.

the QTPLUGINS did not highlight, nor did doing this have the images displayed.

It is called QTPLUGIN and it is only for static plugins. So you don't need it.

[aash_89]

Thank you!!!
That was the mistake i was doing.
I was taking it from bin.

Now i copied it from the qt sub folder it works! Thank you!

In this was of including dynamic libraries, is it possible to have it work on other OS too?

what is the advantage of building qt statically and then doing the deployment?

[john_god]

what is the advantage of building qt statically and then doing the deployment?

Check the wiki here, the pros and cons section

[SkylineBob]

aash_89, Welcome to the wonderful world of Qt.
Beeing a newbie I can see all the enthusiasm about running and deploying your first Qt app.
So, forget about configuring Qt statically for now, some say you should not deploy apps like that unless you have a Qt commercial license. If you have tried to run your app from the windows explorer and it doesnt work you should add qt dll's directory to your system path. This would be something like:

c:\qt\2010.04\qt\bin;c:\Qt\2010.04\bin

(change it acording to your Qt version/ dll's directory)

To run your app.exe in another computer you will need at least, from that first dir, qtcore4.dll, qtgui4.dll, mingwm10.dll and libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll. You could put all this file in the same directory in other computer and that should work. You can also use a third party software to do a more fancy thing like a setup.exe file that would do a next-next-finnish deployment, much more prettier. I personnaly use Install Creator (google it) they have a free version, very easy to use, but there's plenty others programs. That's it.
Then you will show it to your friends and they will say: “Hey, aash_89 did a very cool app it looks very professional“. (that was what my math teacher, who didnt know nothing about programming, said, when I made a Floyd algorithm program lololol )

By the way Wysota and Lykurg are nice guys who have helped hundreds and thousands not 3 (lol). The thing is that at some point some people just would come to the forum asking code snippets, without any effort to learn, expecting the forum to do there work. Also think they are triyng to tell you that the best way to learn Qt, and programming, is being sell thaugh. This means readind a lot of books and tutorials.But I also think that this could be some what difficult at newbie stage and sometimes, frustating. So please let me know if something is unclear to you.

By the way, I advise to deploy the dll files to yourapp.exe current directory and not to windows\system directory. This could save you a lot of errors with diffrent dll versions, (the famous dllhell)

Hi, do you mean if I put those dll's and the qt executable generated in release mode in the same directory on another computer, it'll run?