[Interest] Fwd: QWaylandCompositor question

[Roland Hughes]

On 6/15/2022 3:11 PM, Ralf Van Bogaert wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> I'm really stuck with this.
>
> Can anyone help?

It's doubtful you will get much in the way of answers about Qt desktop 
questions. As to why, read this thread.

https://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/interest/2022-February/037986.html

Most have abandoned Qt on the desktop. If you have access to a Toradex 
development board you can kind of get started down the path here:

https://developer.toradex.com/torizon/how-to/gui/how-to-build-a-gui-with-qt-for-python-and-torizoncore/

The plug-in for VSCode has options for QML and Widget creation. I'm not 
running Wayland on anything other than embedded systems. Even on 
them,*no matter what library I'm using, Elements, NanoGUI, etc. I never 
have to reach into anything Wayland function wise*. The entire purpose 
of a high (or at least higher) level library is to hide such things.

My gut tells me that, if you are using a .PRO file you are missing some 
Qt + values. Getting some Toradex hardware and going through some 
examples there will help you a lot. Most of the Toradex documentation 
pages are circular. What I mean is you start reading one and it will 
have at least one, usually half a dozen "read this first" links. After 
about seven "read this first" links you find you are right back to the 
page you started on.

The default TorizonCore stuff runs a Wayland desktop within a Docker 
container. You can run standard X11 desktop application within other 
Docker containers because Wayland has an X11 client. Depending on who 
wrote the client and who built the OS, the quality of the clients range 
from Rock Star to piss poor.

What I suspect is happening is that you are building an X11 application 
despite what you believe.

I don't remember the name of the function, but there is a function in Qt 
to force the choice of a backend/display engine. Back when my embedded 
customers used Qt we used to have to use it a lot because the selection 
logic which chose the graphics backend didn't always work well.

What I recommend is that you locate a full size Verdin dev board and one 
of the Verdin imx8 modules because that combination works well for this 
journey. I went down it myself. Not to get Qt to work with Wayland, but 
to get everything else to work with Wayland.

https://www.toradex.com/computer-on-modules/verdin-arm-family

There's a whole lot of Wayland configuration you need to know about and 
won't be able to control on any desktop running Wayland. You can direct 
control it in this type of embedded environment.

You need to see how the VSCode plug-in generates project files for a 
"Hello World!" window with a button. Test it out. Then start from that 
point, not trying to reverse engineer some QML thing.

Bottom line.

*With a high(er) level library you should remain oblivious to the 
underlying display engine.* It could be Vulkan, X11, Wayland, 
Freds-new-engine-from-Thursday and your application should not care. 
Your project configuration file, be it Cmake or .PRO is where this 
decision should be contained. If Qt is "guessing wrong" you may need to 
look up the function that forces engine choice and use it. Sorry, don't 
remember off top of my head or I could point you to the blog post I 
wrote about it many years ago. Qt is probably guessing wrong because 
Wayland isn't well implemented on __any__ desktop yet. To understand 
that statement you need to go the embedded route I have sent you down.

Qt has some issues/oddities on Wayland.

https://groups.google.com/g/scintilla-interest/c/n-0DGG0-6dM/m/D2tHbvXlBwAJ

https://groups.google.com/g/scintilla-interest/c/bUSlXStHA2A/m/e251MGCiDAAJ

If you are unable to go the embedded route for your education, you might 
want to scour scintilla-interest for the Wayland messages and see if any 
of the editors having the issue are using C++ and widgets. I didn't 
follow all of those message threads. I just know something got "fixed" 
and some of the editors might still be using C++ with Qt. Most of those 
editors are OpenSource so you could look at the project configuration 
files to sus out what you need. You could choose to build one and step 
through with the debugger as it starts.

Sorry, not a one & done answer, but this is a journey a person must go 
on. Wayland is being forced on us and it is not yet stable, at least on 
the desktop.

-- 
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593

http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com
http://www.infiniteexposure.net
http://www.johnsmith-book.com
http://www.logikalblog.com
http://www.interestingauthors.com/blog
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