[Development] Proposal: expose the OS/platform in QML

[Sorvig Morten]

On Jan 16, 2013, at 9:22 AM, Bache-Wiig Jens <Jens.Bache-Wiig at digia.com> wrote:

>>> 
>>> Second, it would be useful to know if I am on a "phone", "tablet" or "desktop" platform. ( can already guess by the resolution but perhaps it would be convenient to abstract it a bit.
>> 
>> These days you can't really tell from the resolution :) But I don't 
>> think Qt currently has a way to distinguish xcb/wayland running on a 
>> tablet vs a desktop, or eglfs running on a phone vs a tablet. How would 
>> a typical Android application make the latter distinction?
> 
> Yes, and that was exactly my point. We need an abstract way for a platform to tell us if it is one of those formFactors without us guessing or knowing exactly which device type it is. I would probably rename "phone" to "handheld" as and iPod Touch is obviously the same form factor as well.


Or the other way around; "phone" is what most handheld devices are, and the iPod Touch is a special case which we can treat as a "phone" for ui layout purposes. (And, are tablets not "handheld" ?)

In any case, this (Platform.os and Platform.property) looks like a really useful API. +1 from me.

Morten