Qt Editor

I ran the same two tests with Qt Editor: the first with the makefiles from embedXcode, the second with the proprietary Qbs build manager.

The Qt Editor IDE comes in two flavours: one for community and another commercial.

I'm already using Qt Editor for developing against the BeagleBone and the Raspberry Pi. I especially enjoy the clean interface and integrated debugging.
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Each board is considered as a kit.

The kit lists all the parameters: the kind of device and device, the compiler and debugger.
The device defines the GDB server provider.

Using make and the makefiles

The first test uses the makefiles I've been developing for embedXcode since 2010.

No surprise, almost no customisation was needed.

The editor features auto-completion and contextual documentation. Here, the parameters for the blink() function are listed.
I targeted the LaunchPad TivaC, with a built-in hardware debugger.

Building and linking, uploading and running were completed successfully.
However, debugging wasn't possible, as Qt requires GDB with Python script.

Unfortunately, the GCC ARM tool-chain doesn't provide this option by default as per this answer on the FAQs.

Using Qbs

Qt offers three options as build managers: generic CMake, proprietary qmake and Qbs. 

I tried the Qbs solution. ​However, its failed due to its limited documentation. 

The Qbs Manual > List of Modules > Module cpp page only lists the variables, with no explanation. I went through the The Obligatory Hello World Example and the Qbs Quick Reference, to no avail.

I asked for help on the forum QBS 1.7.1 on Qt Creator 4.2.1 — Link Fails Due to cpp.linkerFlags Parameters Order but haven't received any answer so far. 

So I reported a bug, and get useful tips. Eventually, I managed to build and link my example. 

On 29 October 2018, Qt announced that Qbs is deprecated.

Conclusion

Despite the nice and promising features of Qt, completing my tests with the property Qbs build manager was more difficult than expected.

I hope the limitations about Qbs are going to be solved. Priority number 1 is a decent documentation.

Again, the implementation with the makefiles from embedXcode is a clear winner.

Pros

  • Great editor
  • Easy implementation of the embedXcode makefiles
  • Each board implemented as a kit​

Cons

  • No documentation for Qbs
  • Question not answered on the forum to be escalated as bug to obtain a solution

Wrap-Up

  • Not fully tested

Links

Posted 11 May 2017
Updated 16 June 2017, 19 January 2019