Qt 4.0 Beta 1 Released

Trolltech has released the first Beta version of the upcoming Qt 4.0. You can download it from ftp.trolltech.com or from one of its mirrors. An updated online Qt Reference Documentation is also available. The final Qt 4.0 is expected to be released in late first quarter of 2005.

There are five new technologies that are new to Qt, written specifically for Qt 4:

  • Tulip, a new set of template container classes.
  • Interview, a model/view architecture for item views.
  • Arthur, the Qt 4 painting framework.
  • Scribe, the Unicode text renderer with a public API for performing low-level text layout.
  • Mainwindow, a modern action-based mainwindow, toolbar, menu, and docking architecture.

This beta release also previews the new Qt Designer user interface design tool which is still heavily under development.

In addition, the following modules have been significantly improved since Qt 3:

  • A fully cross-platform accessibility module, with support for the emerging SP-API Unix standard in addition to Microsoft and Mac Accessibility.
  • The SQL module, which is now based on the Interview model/view framework.
  • The network module, with better support for UDP and synchronous sockets.
  • The style API, which is now decoupled from the widgets, meaning that you can draw any user interface element on any device (widget, pixmap, etc.).
  • Enhanced thread support, with signal-slot connections across threads and per-thread event loops.

Trolltech has set up a special mailing list, qt4-preview-feedback, for discussion of issues relating to the Qt 4 beta releases.

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Comments

by mikal (not verified)

Do anyone know if this version implements support for mice with more than the two+scroll mouse buttons? A wishlist item on bugs.kde.org got the response it was a limitation of QT, not KDE. I'm really looking forward to using back/forward/application switcher, etc.

by ac (not verified)

Can't you map them with xmodmap?