[Qt-creator] Add a Build for Distribution menu choice to QtCreator

[Koehne Kai]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: qt-creator-bounces+kai.koehne=digia.com at qt-project.org [mailto:qt-
> creator-bounces+kai.koehne=digia.com at qt-project.org] On Behalf Of Henry
> Skoglund
> Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2014 8:09 PM
> To: qt-creator at qt-project.org
> Subject: [Qt-creator] Add a Build for Distribution menu choice to QtCreator
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I've been using QtCreator since last year and it's an excellent IDE and
> project tool. However once you leave the safe haven of your dev. PC,
> i.e. you want to deploy your fancy app to other PCs without Qt, some
> pain can ensue. Especially if you, like me, are a "Qt rookie".
> 
> For Windows, you can run the utility windeployqt and for Macs there is
> macdeployqt which is *really* useful (I know, I sat many hours typing
> "install_name_tool -change xxx yyy" until I learned about macdeployt on
> qt-project.org's forum.) For Linux though, there is no linuxdeployqt :-(
> 
> However windeployqt leaves you a bit stranded, since it doesn't copy
> compiler specific DLLs like msvcr120.dll etc. 

Thanks to Friedemann, a fix for this just got merged into windeployqt (for Qt 5.3.0):

https://codereview.qt-project.org/#change,82285

windeployqt now has the option also include the vcredist*.exe installer for your MSVC, and the runtime dll's for MinGW.

(Note that including the msvcr*.dll's directly is not recommended by Microsoft).

> And on the Mac, if you try
> run the Qt app in a folder that's been macdeployqt'ed on your
> development Mac you'll get the double Qt syndrome.

I'm not into Mac too much ... is this a known issue? Is there a task for it?

> All of this you'll eventually learn, not really a showstopper. But I
> think it's possible for QtCreator to more helpful here, by including a
> *Build for Distribution* menu choice.

I guess most will agree that the tools to deploy Qt applications can be improved. However, I think this should be done bottom-up. That is, it's probably a bad idea for Qt Creator to 'work around' missing features of the *deployqt applications. They should rather be extended/unified, and IMO also better integrated into the build infrastructure (qmake, cmake, qbs and friends). Qt Creator can then maybe take care of the 'glue' / fine tuning that is still needed, then :)

Regards

Kai