[Development] Proposal: Disable AutoText in Qt 7

[Igor Khanin]

On 29/07/2026 10:52, Kai Uwe Broulik wrote:
> I therefore propose that for Qt 7 we switch to PlainText format by 
> default. We then need to figure out a way to make the transition 
> easier (e.g. have an environment variable that lets you force it right 
> now to test your app, or static code analysis that checks for HTML 
> tags in strings, or…?). Additionally, we may need to add additional 
> textFormat properties where useful.
>
FWIW, I agree with this. `Qt::AutoText` is a default for a different 
era. Historically, relying on the users of libraries to be aware that 
they are dealing with untrusted input (and perform escaping or change 
modes accordingly  themselves)  to deal with injection attacks is... not 
a successful approach. Defaults should be safe.

Additionally, it is a shame that string interpolation is still the main 
way to create composite labels, especially when external data is 
involved. I think it could be worthwhile to learn from something like 
t-strings, which were recently introduced in Python 3.14. A type like 
that can carry information about which parts of a string are 
application-controlled and which are externally-controlled all the way 
to a widget/control and allow more easily doing the "right thing" safely.

Best,
Igor