Qt 4.5 Preview Released
Technology Preview now available
Oslo, 21 October 2008 – Qt Software today released a Technology Preview of Qt 4.5 – the upcoming new version of its cross-platform application framework for desktop and embedded development. Preview packages are now available to commercial and open source users for download, testing and feedback.
The Technology Preview provides a first, complete look at new Qt features – all of which are aimed at achieving the three primary design goals for the Qt 4.5 release:
Improve the runtime performance of Qt-based applications
Qt 4.5 brings a new performance benchmarking library, focused re-engineering of key functionality, and a new pluggable graphics system – all aimed at increasing the performance of Qt-based applications. As most engineering work has been done to the core Qt API, in most cases Qt users need only to upgrade to Qt 4.5 to realize performance benefits immediately.
Allow Qt users to realize the full potential of WebKit
Qt integrates with the WebKit browser engine, and with Qt 4.5 that integration has been upgraded to utilize the latest version of WebKit. Qt users can now preview new Netscape plug in support – which allows developers to incorporate Flash™ content – added support for HTML 5, and integration with a new JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish.
Futureproof Qt users’ investments on the Mac® platform with added 64-bit support
Continuing the Qt tradition of insulating developers from platform-specific changes, Qt 4.5 adds support for developing 64-bit applications on top of the new Mac Cocoa API, making it possible for Qt developers to deploy resource-intensive applications to the latest version of the Mac OS (10.5).
For more details, please visit the Qt Developer Zone.
Download the Technology Preview
The Qt 4.5 Technology Preview is available under a special pre-release evaluation license. Source packages are available for all supported platforms. To download the preview packages, please go to the Downloads Pages.
How to Provide Feedback
All feedback from the Qt user community is highly valued, and extensive testing of the new features in Qt 4.5 is encouraged. To collect this feedback, a special mailing list has been set up: qt4-preview-feedback@trolltech.com. To subscribe, send a message containing just the word subscribe to qt4-preview-feedback-request@trolltech.com. For more information on all Qt mailing lists, and to view archived discussions, please visit http://lists.trolltech.com/.
The full release of Qt 4.5 is scheduled for early Q1 2009, with Beta and Release Candidate releases planned for the interim.
