[Interest] News about Qt on QNX ?

Tue Sep 5 10:48:57 CEST 2017

> > Hello All,
> >
> > I am currently developing a QtQuick/QML based application with Qt 5.9.1 and QNX 6.6 on a iMX6 platform with a Linux workstation and I have some difficulties to get fresh informations about Qt on QNX and I don't know where to look anymore.
>
> (Thiago Macieira)
>
> Qt on QNX is still very well supported, by Blackberry themselves. It's one of
> the platforms tested in the Qt continuous integration system.

I have no doubt about the work of Blackberry but nevertheless there is not much fresh news availables about modules compatibility neither on the Qt website and wiki nor on QNX website, even our local license sellers weren't able to provide us thoses informations.

> I have no clue about iMX6 though.

According ot the (wiki https://wiki.qt.io/QNX_Platform#Reference_boards) a Freescale i.MX6Q Sabre Lite, board is use for development and testing.

> > I first searched in the wiki but it was updated for the last time in April 2015 (http://wiki.qt.io/Qt_Status_on_QNX) and there is no news on the Qt documentation (http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/platform-notes-qnx.html) and in Supported platforms (http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/supported-platforms.html).
> >
> > The most recent informations I found are in this presentation from September 2016 at QtCon by James McDonnel https://conf.qtcon.org/system/attachments/154/original/Qt_on_QNX_-_2016_-_003.pdf?1474298472) and in the Qt mailing list archives (http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/development/2017-March/029347.html).
> >
> >
> > I also found out in april 2017 in the Development mailing list (http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/development/2017-April/029597.html) and in the Maintainers list (https://wiki.qt.io/Maintainers) than James McDonnel has been nominated as the official maintainer for Qt on QNX.
> >
> > Based on those previous statements I have some questions, regarding Qt on QNX.
> >
> > - Roadmap and Modules support
> >
> > Does a roadmap about Qt on QNX exist ? If yes where can we find it ?
>
> (Thiago Macieira)
>
> In the same place as the roadmap for all the other platforms.
>
> We don't make roadmaps.

I thought you did :)

http://blog.qt.io/blog/2016/02/22/qt-roadmap-for-2016/
http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/02/22/qt-roadmap-for-2017/

There is also informations in the wiki in "Release" and "Known issues" about current and future versions of Qt, but there is not often mention of QNX.

> > It seems Qt 5.9 is supported by both QNX 6.6 and QNX 7.0, what will it be for later version of QT (5.10, 5.1x, and later 6.x) ?
>
> (Thiago Macieira)
>
> Most likely we'll need to support 6.6 for some time. The fact that it uses GCC
> 4.7 was a problem, as I wanted to drop it from our supported list for 5.10.
>
> >
> > It there a way to know the list of modules supported for recent versions of Qt ? I also found there is a Qt Bug about this planned to be fixed for Qt 5.10 (https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-59976).
>
> (Thiago Macieira)
>
> All of the ones we develop. That excludes qtwebkit and qtwebengine, since they
> are upstream projects.

The question was more QNX oriented as today not all modules are compatible with QNX 6.6 (e.g. Virtual keyboard).

> > - Webengine
> >
> > Since Qt5.6 QtWebkit is no more officially supported by Qt. However you can compile it anyway but it works only with QWidgets and not with QtQuick/QML because QtDeclarative is not supported, from what I understand.
>
> (Thiago Macieira)
>
> And there's QtWebkit 5.212 if you need an update.

When I checkout QtWebkit version to 5.212 I cannot compile Qt 5.9.1 for QNX 6.6 with gcc 4.7.3.

The WebKit build was disabled for the following reasons:
    * cross-compilation of QtWebKit with qmake is not supported yet
    * QNX is not supported.
    * Using gcc version 4.7, but at least gcc version 4.9 is required to build QtWebKit.

But as far as I understand it is expected as QNX is not supported anymore by the new QtWebkit (http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/development/2016-June/026156.html)

Beside this I can compile QWebkit "bf172ae - Fix compilation with ICU 59 (HEAD, origin/5.9.1)", even if  there is a small adjustment to be able to do so.
I filled a bug report about it one year ago and I updated it this week (https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-54307).

> (Konstantin Tokarev)
>
> It's probably not hard to provide QML API of QtWebKit on QNX.
>
> The only requirement is one sufficiently motivated developer with access to compiler toolchain and QNX device, and knowledge of QNX native IPC. Feel free to ask me any questions on implementation on IRC and mailing lists

I would be happy to help but my QNX's IPC skills right now are very limited.

Beside that I would like to know what is the position of Blackberry/QNX about web page display in the future with Qt and especially QtQuick/QML ?

> > Nevetheless there is no solution to display HTML page with QtQuick/QML on QNX and QtWebengine (QtWebkit replacement) doesn't work on QNX because it is tied to the rendering engine Blink from chromium project.
> >
> > In the presentation from September 2016 there is a mention of it and a question "QtWebEngine from BLINK for QNX?".
> >
> > I would like to know if there is a port in progress ? If yes what is the current status of this port and will it be supported on both QNX 6.6 and QNX 7.0 ?
> >
> >
> > - Virtual Keyboard
> >
> > Is there a plan to make the QtVirtualKeyboard module compatible with QNX ?
> >
> > There is already a bug (https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-54576) which has been reported by a silver user, but there is no gerrit open.
> >
> > I personally tried the patch for virtual keyboard and it worked at least up to Qt 5.8 but it seems to not work anymore with Qt 5.9.1.
> >
> > - Qt Creator and remote debugging
> >
> > It is currently impossible to remote debug custom QML plugin used through QML loader because even if you add "set sysroot" or "set solib-search-path" in "Options > Debug > Gdb > Additionnal startup commands" the symbols are not loaded and the breakpoints do not work, at least with Qt Creator 4.2.
> >
> > It seem already has been described in a old bug which has never been opened (https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTCREATORBUG-12980)
> >
> > Is there another method use by Qt developers to debug remote custom QML application with plugins on QNX ?
> >
> > I tried with the latest Qt Creator version v4.4-rc1, but for now I cannot start the debugging on QNX (https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTCREATORBUG-18804).
> >
> >
> > - Development
> >
> > Those last ones are organizational questions about how Qt and Qt Creator are developed for QNX, because it is not really clear for us.
> >
> > We understand there are QNX employees working on Qt, but are they also employees of Qt working on QNX port? Maybe it depends on which module/part ?
>
> (Thiago Macieira)
>
> They work for Blackberry.
>
> > From what we understood QtCreator is only maintained by Qt even for the QNX part, is that right ?
>
> (Thiago Macieira)
>
> Why does it matter?

It is to have a better understanding of the of Qt and QtCreator developpement organisation.
Actually we also ask our local QNX and Qt sellers about this question and they didn't provide us clear answer.

> > It would be very helpful if James McDonnel or someone else working on Qt for QNX would be able to answer some of those questions.
> >
> > Thank you in advance.

Regards.

Julien Bordes.
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