I've installed the latest version of Qt (5.1) and when I try to deploy my app on Mac using the macdeployqt tool, the app is still not working on other macs. It's completely working on my Mac and it doesn't not indicate any errors. After researches I found this and I think it's my problem : Qt 5.1 and Mac: Bug making macdeployqt not working properly and https://bugreports.qt-project.org/browse/QTBUG-14699
But the explanation is too technical for me (+ english not my native language), I'm a complete beginner, can you explain what do I have to do to simply make my app work on Mac ? Step by step ? It is perfectly functional on Windows (with the standard dlls).
Thank you so much, I think it will help a lot of beginners that are going through the same issue.
There are 3 tools at your disposal to sort out deployment of Qt for OS X (MacOS).
macdeployqt: This tool gathers all the Qt libraries that your application declares it needs in its project, adds them to the app bundle and updates their paths so that your application knows where to find them.
otool: A complex tool for examining the contents of binaries, but in this case, used with the -L argument, will display the paths to all the libraries that your application will reference. These are the paths that it will be looking to find those libraries.
install_name_tool: Since macdeployqt only handles Qt libraries that are required by your application, you can use install_name_tool to update paths to any other libraries that your app requires. For example, if you have a separate non-Qt framework that your application relies upon, you need to have a post compilation step to copy the framework into the application bundle and then use install_name_tool to update the paths to the framework.
If you're having problems, check that the libraries / frameworks have been copied to the correct location in the application bundle and then use otool -L to check the paths. If any are incorrect, use name_install tool to fix them.
If you still can't get it to work, please edit your question and add the output from using otool -L.
Note, historically, various versions of Qt have suffered bugs with the macdeployqt utility, so if it is not working properly, you may also want to check the qt bug tracker.
Related
I developed a app on QT using armadillo with Lapack, Blas and Lapacke. It run on my QT (running on MSYS2 - MingW32), but when i try build a stand alone with windeployqt, apparently works. But when i tried run, it give missing .dll (liblapack.dll, libblas.dll,libstdc++-6.dll and libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll).
I don't know what i can do to fix it.
Unfortunately windeployqt has some issues on MSYS2/MinGW. For starters you need to enable the --compiler-runtime command line option to get libstdc++-6.dll and libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll, but probably it's not enough. See for example this issue for further details: https://github.com/Alexpux/MINGW-packages/issues/221.
The conclusion is that you're better off with using also an other tool (like ldd) together with windeployqt and some clever scripting to copy all of the needed .dll-s into your deployment.
I'd like to download Qt. I tried to download it from Qt's website but this gives me an exe file and since I've got a limited account when I try to run it it asks for an admin password. I've searched the web for a way for a limited account to install Qt but I haven't found anything. Could someone please help me find a solution?
In case it matters, I'm using Code::Blocks and Windows 7.
You could download the free software source code and compile and build it on your machine (that takes about a whole night, or maybe more). Don't forget to configure the build appropriately (I don't know Windows, but on Linux I'll suggest explicitly setting the -prefix to some writable directory ...). Before starting, ask explicitly your boss for permission (if you violate your company policies, you can be fired at once), and ask for guidance from someone knowing your operating system better than you do. You might need to change your PATH too.
Alternatively, ask permission to install and use a Linux distribution.
PS. Be sure to get permission to do something (even if technically you can do it alone).
You can download this ZIP file with Qt. All you have to do is unzip the ZIP file (which will take time) and place the files it contains in the right folder, nothing that requires administrator privileges. I recommend you put the contents of the ZIP file in C:\Qt, otherwise it might not work correctly (if this folder doesn't already exist, you can create it without administrator privileges and if it does exist, Qt is probably already installed on your computer in which case you don't need to do anything). I've also posted Qt's license agreement as it is in the installer program here since Qt wants you to read it before you use Qt.
Furthermore, I recommend using Qt Creator to make your Qt projects instead of Code::Blocks, because it's difficult to get Qt5 to work with Code::Blocks and Qt5 is the version of Qt used on both this website and Qt's installer (see this question) (if you find a way to get Qt5 to work with Code::Blocks, all the better, maybe you could even answer the question for which I posted a link). Qt Creator is included in the ZIP files on my website and to use Qt with Qt creator, all you have to do is include the right header files, no linking is needed. The path of Qt Creator is in the table on the bottom of the website.
You can download an archived distribution of MSYS2. After you extract and run it, you can use its packet manager to download numerous packages, including Qt. The only downside is you will have to settle for the version it provides, which is a little old, currently 5.5.1. You can install by typing:
pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-qt5 // for 32bit build or
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-qt5 // for 64bit
This will install Qt and all dependencies automatically. Make sure your antivirus is not running in the final stage, because it can mess with the binary patcher that patches Qt to run from its current installation folder (because advanced software like Qt apparently cannot work without hard-coded paths).
You can even get a static build of Qt, which is quite useful, just add a -static to the package name.
Just in case you were wondering - MSYS2 is a build environment, it can come quite in handy, for getting ready to use libraries, or for building libraries which require a build environment. You can build Qt without it, however, it is a very slow process that may fail, and even though it is not complex to do, I would not recommend it as a first option.
If you still decide to build it from source, there is a detailed guide which will get you through the process.
I developed a Qt application in MacBook (El-Capitan 10.11.2) and it is ready now to be released.
What i want now, is to create the standalone executable file for both Mac and Windows OS.
But I don't know how !
I found this link but I am unable to follow it is guidance, it looks different from what my system is showing me.
If you have any idea, please help me.
Thank you
Well, to compile an application for windows, you will need a windows machine (or at least a virtual machine). You can't compile for windows on mac.
Regarding the "standalone": The easy way is to deploy your application together with all the required dlls/frameworks and ship them as one "package". To to this, there are the tools windeployqt and macdeployqt. However, those will not be "single file" applications, but rather a collection of files.
If you want to have one single file, you will have to build Qt statically! You can to this, but you will have to do it on your own. And if you do, please notice that the LGPL-license (the one for the free version of Qt) requires you to make the source-code of your program public! That's not the case if you just link to the dynamic libraries.
EDIT:
Deployment
Deployment can be really hard, because you have to do it differently for each platform. Most times you will have 3 steps
Dependency resolving: In this step, you collect all the exectuables/lirabries/translations/... your application requires and collect them somewhere they can find each other. For windows and mac, this can be done using the tools I mentioned above.
Installation: Here you will have to create some kind of "installer". The easiest way is to create a zip-file that contains everyhing you need. But if you want to have a "nice" installation, you will have to create proper "installers" for each platform. (One of many possibilities is the Qt Installer Framework. Best thing about it: It's cross platform.)
Distribution: Distribution is how to get your program to the user. On Mac, you will have the App-Store, for windows you don't. Best way is to provide the download on a website created for this (like sourceforge, github, ...)
I can help you with the first step, but for the second step you will have to research the possibilities and decide for a way to do it.
Dependencies
Resolving the dependencies can be done by either building Qt statically (this way you will have only one single file, but gain additional work because you will have to compile Qt) or using the dynamic build. For the dynamic build, Qt will help you to resolve the dependencies:
macdeployqt is rather easy to use. Compile your app in release mode and call <qt_install_dir>/bin/macdeployqt <path_to_your_bundle>/<bundle>.app. After thats done, all Qt libraries are stored inside the <bundle>.app folder.
For windeployqt is basically the same: <qt_install_dir>\bin\windeployqt --release <path_to_your_build>\<application>.exe. All dependencies will be inside the build folder. (Hint: copy the <application>.exe in an empty directoy and run windeployqt on that path instead. This way you get rid of all the build-files).
Regarding the static build: Just google it, you will find hundreds of explanations for any platform. But unless you have no other choice but to use one single file (for whatever reason) it would recommend you to use dynamic builds. And regarding the user experience: On mac, they won't notice a difference, since in both cases everything will be hidden inside the app bundle. On windows, it's normal to have multiple files, so no one will bother. (And if you create an installer for windows, just make sure to add a desktop shortcut. This way the user will to have "a single file" to click.)
I'm working on a collaborative project in Qt Creator, and I've managed to get it to compile: I linked CEF Framework and the CEF dll wrapper. However, when I try to run it I get:
dyld: Library not loaded: #executable_path/Chromium Embedded Framework
Reason: image not found
As far as my understanding goes, the framework needs to be copied into my DEST_DIR, into .app/Contents/MacOS or something like that. I have NOT managed to make it work even by copying the framework there manually.
Also, since the development is meant to be cross platform, I was wondering if there's a way to tell qmake how to copy the framework to my DEST_DIR.
Any help in understanding how to deal with frameworks on Mac OS X in Qt Creator would be greatly appreciated.
As far as my understanding goes, the framework needs to be copied into my DEST_DIR, into .app/Contents/MacOS or something like that.
You're nearly there. Frameworks are generally copied into
.app/Contents/Frameworks
However, your bundle's executable contains a reference to where it expects those framework libraries are residing and having copied them into the app bundle, you need to tell the executable where they are.
Using oTool with -L argument, you can see the libraries referenced by the executable. You'd call it with the full path. For example
otool -L /Applications/Calculator.app/Contents/MacOS/Calculator
For each dylib in the framework, you need to fix up the path using the command line tool install_name_tool
When deploying a Qt application for Qt, we must run the macdeployqt. This essentially does the same thing for the Qt Frameworks; copies them into the relevant Frameworks folder and updates the paths.
I've not used it myself, but according to the documentation, macdeployqt supports handling 3rd party frameworks, with the option -executable=< path >
So I've finished my Qt application, and I need to implement testing using the Squish testing application (first time using). Apparently I require a working exe file, but I can't get the executable to run. I added all the .dll files to the same directory, only to get the error:
Prior to that I was getting errors saying that XXXX.dll is missing, but like I said, I've added them to the directory. I've tried using both debug and release builds of my project with the same results. I've also tried building a stand-alone executable, but that has it's own problems (one thing at a time). The program runs great in Qt Creator and VS2013...just not on its own.
Any solutions to this?
EDIT:
From Dependency Walker...
0x7B is the error code for invalid image format.
You're either trying to run a 64-bit application on a 32-bit system, or linking to a 64-bit library (ie you copied the wrong DLLs).
Or your binaries are just corrupted.
If you run the application standalone (i.e. not from Qt Creator) you also need the Qt library DLLs. which one you need, depends on the components you are using.
Dependency Walker is also a useful tool to find missing DLLs under Windows.
As for me it seems that something is missing. Qt on windows has the script windeployqt, it will provide all needed dependencies. See documentation http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/windows-deployment.html about use of this. On Windows you will be able to run cmd with loaded qt environment variables ( on Windows 7 see under windows applications menu - it will be available if qt is installed ). As Simon stated Dependency Walker is good tool.