|
1 |
|
2 Qt 3.2 introduces new features as well as many improvements over the |
|
3 3.1.x series. This file gives an overview of the main changes since |
|
4 version 3.1.2. For more details, see the online documentation which |
|
5 is included in this distribution. The documentation is also available |
|
6 at http://qt.nokia.com/doc/ |
|
7 |
|
8 The Qt version 3.2 series is binary compatible with the 3.1.x series. |
|
9 Applications compiled for 3.1 will continue to run with 3.2. |
|
10 |
|
11 **************************************************************************** |
|
12 * General * |
|
13 **************************************************************************** |
|
14 |
|
15 |
|
16 Qt library |
|
17 ---------- |
|
18 |
|
19 New classes have been added to the Qt Library including a |
|
20 class to add splash screens to applications (QSplashScreen), a toolbox |
|
21 widget that provides a column of tabbed widgets (QToolBox), and a |
|
22 class to manage per-thread data storage (QThreadStorage). |
|
23 |
|
24 The SQL module received a fair bit of attention this time. The most |
|
25 notable improvements include a native IBM DB2 driver, complete support |
|
26 for stored procedures including the possibility to access |
|
27 out-parameters, and native support for 64 bit fields without having to |
|
28 convert to or from strings. We also added support for setting |
|
29 connection parameters. This way you can, for example, conveniently |
|
30 open an SSL connection to a MySQL or PostgreSQL database. If you need |
|
31 even more customization, e.g. for an Oracle database, you can set up |
|
32 the connection yourself and instantiate a Qt driver object on top of |
|
33 it. An extended SQL cursor class has been added that makes it more |
|
34 convenient to display result sets from general SQL queries |
|
35 (QSqlSelectCursor). In addition, you can add custom database drivers |
|
36 without compiling them as plugins (see |
|
37 QSqlDatabase::registerSqlDriver()). |
|
38 |
|
39 QLineEdit, the one-line text editor, now supports validation input |
|
40 masks. The feature complements the previous QValidator concept and |
|
41 allows e.g. restriction of input to the IP address format (mask |
|
42 "990.990.990.990;_"), or to ISO date format (mask "0000-90-90;0"). |
|
43 |
|
44 Qt's unicode code support has been extended. Most notably, full |
|
45 support for Indic scripts has been added, covering writing systems |
|
46 such as Devanagari, Tamil and Bengali. The group of right to left |
|
47 writing systems has been extended with support for Syriac. Both |
|
48 improvements are available on both Windows with Uniscribe installed, |
|
49 and on Unix/X11 when using XFT with OpenType fonts. |
|
50 |
|
51 All tool classes that support STL-like iterators with begin() and |
|
52 end(), contain two extra functions constBegin() and constEnd(). The |
|
53 const versions always return const iterators, and thus can be a little |
|
54 bit faster with Qt's implicitly shared containers. |
|
55 |
|
56 QPainter's complex drawText() function has been highly |
|
57 optimized. Despite its support for complex unicode scripts, it now |
|
58 performs better than its less unicode-capable counterpart in Qt 2.3. |
|
59 |
|
60 QPixmap now supports pixmaps with alpha channel (semi transparency) on |
|
61 all Windows versions except Windows 95 and Windows NT. |
|
62 |
|
63 The print dialog now supports "selection" as a print range as well as |
|
64 the possibility to enable/disable all different printer options |
|
65 individually. |
|
66 |
|
67 Many classes were improved; see the detailed overview that follows. |
|
68 |
|
69 Qt Motif Extension |
|
70 ------------------ |
|
71 |
|
72 Dialog handling has matured and has been extended since the |
|
73 extension's introduction in Qt 3.1. The documentation and code |
|
74 examples have been improved, including a walkthrough that covers the |
|
75 complete migration of a real-world Motif example to Qt. The process |
|
76 contains four intermediate steps where the application utilizes both |
|
77 toolkits. |
|
78 |
|
79 ActiveQt Extension |
|
80 ------------------ |
|
81 |
|
82 Type handling has been extended on both the container and the server |
|
83 side. The new supported types are byte arrays and 64bit integers. The |
|
84 QAxServer module supports QObject subclasses as return and parameter |
|
85 types of slots, and allows error reporting through COM exceptions. |
|
86 The Designer integration has been extended to support property dialogs |
|
87 implemented by the control server. |
|
88 |
|
89 Qt Designer |
|
90 ----------- |
|
91 |
|
92 The popup menu editor has been rewritten. The new editor provides the |
|
93 the ability to add, edit and remove menus and menu items directly in |
|
94 the menubar and in the popup menu. Navigation and editing can be done |
|
95 using either the mouse or the keyboard. |
|
96 |
|
97 The new QWidgetContainerPlugin class provides support for complex |
|
98 custom container widgets in Designer, such as the custom tab widget, |
|
99 etc. |
|
100 |
|
101 The property editor now allows editing of properties with or'd values |
|
102 (sets). |
|
103 |
|
104 Designer also supports the new QToolBox widget in a similar fashion to |
|
105 QTabWidget, etc. |
|
106 |
|
107 Qt Assistant |
|
108 ------------ |
|
109 |
|
110 Profiles have been introduced to allow applications to extend the use |
|
111 of Qt Assistant as a help system. Profiles describe the documentation |
|
112 to use so that only application specific documentation will be |
|
113 referenced in an end user installation. Profiles also allow some |
|
114 customization of the look in Qt Assistant. For detailed information, |
|
115 see the helpdemo example in $QTDIR/examples/helpdemo. |
|
116 |
|
117 Profiles replace the content files and categories system. The |
|
118 following command line options are removed since they no longer serve |
|
119 any purpose: addContentFile, removeContentFile, category, and |
|
120 disableFirstRun. |
|
121 |
|
122 Qt Assistant has multiple tabs for browsing, therefore enabling |
|
123 multiple pages to be browsed without opening a new window. |
|
124 |
|
125 It is possible to specify a default home page. |
|
126 |
|
127 It is possible to specify a PDF reader so that urls to PDF files can |
|
128 be opened from Qt Assistant. |
|
129 |
|
130 **************************************************************************** |
|
131 * Library * |
|
132 **************************************************************************** |
|
133 |
|
134 - QAction / QActionGroup |
|
135 Simplified constructors so that it is no longer necessary to |
|
136 specify texts for buttons and menu items separately. |
|
137 For action groups, we fixed the enable/disable behavior. If |
|
138 an action inside an action group is explicitly disabled, it is |
|
139 no longer implicitly enabled together with the group. |
|
140 This is identical to enabling/disabling widgets and their |
|
141 children. |
|
142 |
|
143 - QApplication |
|
144 Added the aboutQt() slot for convenience. |
|
145 |
|
146 - QAssistantClient |
|
147 Added the new function, setArguments(), that invokes Qt |
|
148 Assistant in different modes. |
|
149 |
|
150 - QAxBase |
|
151 Added the new function, asVariant(), that passes a COM |
|
152 object through dynamicCall(). |
|
153 |
|
154 - QAxBindable |
|
155 Added the new function, reportError(), that sends error |
|
156 information to the ActiveX client. |
|
157 |
|
158 - QColor |
|
159 Added the new static function, colorNames(), that retrieves a |
|
160 list of all color names known to Qt. |
|
161 |
|
162 - QDeepCopy |
|
163 Now also supports QDir, QFileInfo, and QStringList. |
|
164 |
|
165 - QDom |
|
166 Now has long and ulong support for setAttribute() and |
|
167 setAttributeNS(). |
|
168 |
|
169 - QFont |
|
170 Added the new properties: stretch and overline. Added the new |
|
171 function, resolve(), that copies unspecified attributes from |
|
172 one font to another. |
|
173 |
|
174 - QFontDataBase |
|
175 Added a new overload for families() that restricts the |
|
176 returned list to fonts supporting a specific QFont::Script, |
|
177 e.g. QFont::Greek, QFont::Devanagari or QFont::Arabic. |
|
178 |
|
179 - QFontInfo / QFontMetrics |
|
180 Added new constructors that force the info and metrics objects |
|
181 to use a given QFont::Script. |
|
182 |
|
183 - QGLWidget |
|
184 Added a new constructor that takes a QGLContext |
|
185 parameter. Makes the undocumented setContext() obsolete. |
|
186 |
|
187 - QHeader |
|
188 Added getters for the sort indicator (sortIndicatorSection() |
|
189 and sortIndicatorOrder() ). |
|
190 |
|
191 - QImage |
|
192 Added a new overload for save() that writes to a given |
|
193 QIODevice*. |
|
194 |
|
195 - QListView |
|
196 Added tristate support to check list items |
|
197 (QCheckListItem::setTristate()). Added the new function, |
|
198 setSelectionAnchor(), to set the list view's selection anchor |
|
199 explicitly. |
|
200 |
|
201 - QLineEdit |
|
202 Added input masks: setInputMask(), inputMask(), and |
|
203 hasAcceptableInput(). |
|
204 |
|
205 - QMessageBox |
|
206 Added the new static function, question(), that complements |
|
207 the existing information(), warning() and fatal() functions. |
|
208 |
|
209 - QMotifDialog [Qt Motif Extension] |
|
210 Now has two distinct modes of operation: 1) it allows a Motif |
|
211 dialog to have a Qt parent, and 2) it allows a Qt dialog to have |
|
212 a Motif parent. |
|
213 |
|
214 - QPixmapCache |
|
215 Added the new function, remove(), to explicitly remove a |
|
216 pixmap from the cache. |
|
217 |
|
218 - QPrinter |
|
219 Added the new functions: setPrintRange(), printRange(), |
|
220 setOptionEnabled(), and optionEnabled(). For Windows only, |
|
221 added the new function, setWinPageSize(), that allows setting |
|
222 DEVMODE.dmPaperSize directly. |
|
223 |
|
224 - QPtrList |
|
225 Added STL-like iterators with begin(), end(), and erase(). |
|
226 |
|
227 - QScrollBar |
|
228 Maintains a user defined size policy when the direction |
|
229 changes. |
|
230 |
|
231 - QSplashScreen [new] |
|
232 This new widget class provides a splash screen to be shown |
|
233 during application startup. |
|
234 |
|
235 - QSplitter |
|
236 Added the new properties: opaqueResize, childrenCollapsible, |
|
237 and handleWidth. |
|
238 |
|
239 - QSqlError |
|
240 Added a couple of convenience functions: text(), which returns |
|
241 the concatenated database and driver texts. showMessage(), |
|
242 which will pop up a QMessageBox with the text that text() |
|
243 returns. |
|
244 |
|
245 - QSqlQuery |
|
246 Added overloads for the bindValue() call which makes it |
|
247 possible to specifiy what role a bound value should have: In, |
|
248 Out or InOut. |
|
249 |
|
250 - QSqlSelectCursor [new] |
|
251 This new QSqlCursor subclass provides browsing of general SQL |
|
252 SELECT statements. |
|
253 |
|
254 - QString |
|
255 Added 64 bit support. Added the new functions: multiArg(), |
|
256 reserve(), capacity(), squeeze(). Added case insensitive |
|
257 overloads for startsWith() and endsWidth(). |
|
258 |
|
259 - QStringList |
|
260 Added the new function gres(). |
|
261 |
|
262 - QStyle |
|
263 Added support for toolbox, header, MDI frame, table grid line |
|
264 color, line edit password character, and message box question. |
|
265 |
|
266 - QSyntaxHighlighter |
|
267 Added the new function, currentParagraph(). |
|
268 |
|
269 - QTabWidget |
|
270 Added support for custom widgets to be placed beside |
|
271 the tab bar: setCornerWidget() and cornerWidget(). |
|
272 |
|
273 - QTextEdit |
|
274 In Log mode, added the new functions: setMaxLogLines() and |
|
275 maxLogLines(). |
|
276 |
|
277 - QThreadStorage [new] |
|
278 This new tool class provides per-thread data storage, also |
|
279 referred to as thread local storage or TLS. |
|
280 |
|
281 - QToolBox [new] |
|
282 This new widget class provides a column of tabbed widgets, one |
|
283 above the other, with the current page displayed below the |
|
284 current tab. |
|
285 |
|
286 - QVariant |
|
287 Added support for LongLong and ULongLong. |
|
288 |
|
289 - QWidget |
|
290 Added a new widget flag, WNoAutoErase, that combines the now |
|
291 obsolete WResizeNoErase and WRepaintNoErase flags. |
|
292 |
|
293 - QWidgetContainerPlugin [new] |
|
294 This new plugin class complements QWidgetPlugin for custom |
|
295 container widgets, i.e. widgets that can host child |
|
296 widgets. |