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Bridging the Gap - Extending Open Source in Qtopia
Lorn Potter, Qtopia Community Manager
In the past, Qtopia 2 Open Source Edition used an older version of Qt rather than the then current Qt 4 release. Developers had to download several different Qt versions and packages to make it all work. With the release of Qtopia 4, Trolltech has bridged the gap between Qt and Qtopia versions, and the (recent) Qtopia Open Source Edition release has made available more Qtopia source code under the GPL than ever before.
Qtopia development is now more in sync with Qt desktop version. Not only that, but there is everything needed for development in one package. It's all there – desktop tools such as Designer and Linguist, Qtopia Core as well as Qtopia source code. No need to hunt down, download, compile and install several different packages. We have even packaged everything needed for Greenphone development in one SDK that runs in a virtual machine, which makes it possible to get started even faster developing Qtopia applications, even on Windows (tm).
If you know how to write Qt applications, you already know how to write Qtopia applications. With a few, often minor code modifications to take into account differences in screen size and menu operations, developers can 'port' their Qt desktop programs to run in the Qtopia environment. Take a look at how easy it is by downloading the example applications 'ported' from standard the Qt examples from Qtopia.net.
Trolltech has also made it easier to add support for new devices, Qtopia Core keyboard and touchscreen driver plugins, all through the use of device configuration profiles.
http://doc.trolltech.com/qtopia4.1/syscust-devconfigprof.html
Developers can even build in a different directory than the source code tree, called Shadow Building, to keep your source tree clean and allow easier cross compiling of different architectures.
http://doc.trolltech.com/qtopia4.1/buildsystem-user-guide.html#depot-hopping
It is an exciting time in the Linux hand-held world. Open source development with Qtopia has never been easier. Just one package, one configure and one make to do it all!