C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 (2nd Edition) (Prentice Hall Open Source Software Development Series)

I've recently had a need to create some cross-platform applications and decided to look at Qt. While the Qt web site provides a great deal of information, I found this text to be a very readable way to quickly come up to speed on creating applications with Qt. Summerfield's prose moves the reader quickly from point to point with a series of short example programs and detailed breakdowns of hows and whys. I also own copies of other Summerfield books, and I've quite enjoyed the rapid learning experience they provide. The Python books (Learning Python / Programming Python / Programming in Python 3) provide more than enough detail for the experienced developer and gently take the novice forward as well. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Advanced Qt Programming book to continue to dive deeper into Qt development.

This book was my first introduction to Qt, and I've been using it for about two weeks now on a project. Other reviewers have argued that it doesn't give enough of a big-picture view. It is true that the book has many pages of annotated source code. I started off thinking the verbosity was daunting, but when I actually tried to start using Qt, I quickly appreciated all the little details in this book and the very complete index (the index is over 50 pages long). The Trolltech website is a good reference for putting everything in one place, but this book is great for stepping through an example in detail.One caveat: I've used other widget sets (Gtk, Tk) before with other languages, but have no previous experience with Qt, and not much experience with C++ (so I found the "Intro to C++" chapter for Qt programmers a helpful summary).

GTK, Qt, wxWidgets, and Microsoft WPF are 4 major tools to build desktop applications. I used Microsoft WPF for several years but it is not a universal platform. GTK works well as does wxWidgets, but Qt has a real reputation for use in major software applications. I wanted to know the relative strengths of Qt versus other solutions for cross platform GUI software. This book is old, does not cover the latest version. That can be a good thing sometimes as it narrows the scope to the essentials.I quite believe that you could use the knowledge from this book to know all you would need to build a GUI program that is current, modern and up-to-date in a way that faster than reading online documentation. The book could have been better written, but as is, it provides a full scope on widget based user interfaces.I gave the book 4 stars because it covers version 4. A book on version 5 addressing the same scope of material could be useful. Also, I think they could tighten the presentation to better segment the material into theory, concept, design, API, and description of demo App that illustrates the API. Still a good and useful book.

Great book, don't be misguided by negative or mixed reviews. I already own a book on Qt 3.0, and approached Qt programming, but never had sufficient time to become proficient in it. Now I have an important project to be developed using Qt and I was looking for an up-to-date book. This book is really great, covers all what you need and in detail. Some reviews lament the fact that the detail is not sufficient, but, in my view, it would be very hard to provide more detail than the book already offers - it really covers all you need to become proficient in Qt. If you are familiar with C++, you will have no problems picking up the subject and the pace will be right for you.

I realize its difficult to make examples that appeal to everybody. This book have some very good example ideas, but often lack in execution. Having spent the last few years with Java & C# it annoys me a lot that C++ programmers still continue to place a lot of initialization code into main(). In this book, eg. in chapter 5 the authors creates a custom plotter widget, that would be very useful as an example if it wasn't half made. Remember that Qt is OO and then you don't require the user to modify the class initialization in order to use the class. Every class needs to be able to stand on its own and initializations come in the constructor.Like a previous reviewer I would also like to see a Qt book that doesn't follow the exact same topic layout as the official manual, variety is always good.I'd like to end with saying that this is good book, however there is a bit too much information in some of the lengthy examples. If you manage to get through the chapters though, I'm sure you're well set up for a job as a Qt programmer.

This is a great book with very in-depth coverage of most of the Qt API, In the first 2 chapters the author takes it one little step at a time - when you complete those chapters you feel pretty comfortable with the basics and can even take the program few steps further own your own. Chapter 3 initially sounds even more exciting but it's like the author changed personalities all of a sudden and decided to give you a 1000+ line program split up into several files, one file alone contains 505+ lines and most of it is just reading various comments about the functions instead of interacting with them. It's impossible to make it through the book without the example content on the CD and Reading this book from a beginners perspective is like taking swimming lessons where you start off with simple strokes and then the teacher throws you into the Atlantic Ocean from a plane. Unfortunately this is the best book out there - any other books or tutorials that I've seen don't seem to have any better quality. Frankly I could learn more by opening up a finished program and cross-reference each line with the API documentation.

I've gone thru the first 3 chapters as yet and I can say its a fantastic book, very clearly explained. Even subtle points are explained. Its evident that its written by those who have used Qt extensively.The only thing I'd like to point out is that it is written keeping Qt4 in mind. In my installation I had Qt5. To adapt to this, I had to make the following change, viz. add the following in the ".pro" file: QT += widgetsThat said, the book could have spent a few more pages on walking thru the installation. There are a few gotchas which are not so evident. Eg. I broke my head when I installed 64-bit Qt components but my MSVC was 32-bit I had forgotten; Then there are also gotchas around how to use MSVC as the main IDE (eg. the steps for running qtenv2.bat, vcvarsall.bat, etc are not documented anywhere. I had to Google up a lot and find out this info).BTW: Qt installation sucks. It is painfully slow. It seems to download and install one file/component at a time. I don't know why they didn't architect it so as to download all in one shot (which'd be much faster) and then do the installation.

Scritto in modalità molto chiara. Ho imparato molto veloce con questo libro.

Anders als das eher enttäuschende "... Design Patterns ..." des selben Verlages hat mich dieses Buch sofort in seinen Bann gezogen. Alle Beispiele sind leicht nachvollziehbar, die Lernkurve ist stetig. Viele Tips, warum etwas so und nicht anders funktioniert. So muß das sein!Dieses Buch erinnert mich sehr an das Niveau von "Buchheit" (Win16) und "Petzold" (Win32). Ich würde es darum als "DAS ESSENTIELLE BUCH FÜR Qt-EINSTEIGER" bezeichnen.Das einzige, was mich ärgert ist, daß ich es nicht schon vor 3 Jahren gekauft habe, als in c't immer mal wieder Qt-Projekte vorgestellt wurden. Habe viel Lebens- und Arbeitszeit vertrödelt weil ich mich nicht ernsthaft mit Qt befaßt habe. Hätte ich dieses Buch eher in die Finger bekommen, wäre das anders gelaufen!

I am working with the book and Qt4. The book is a valuable guide for people using C++ and Qt4 to develop platform-independent GUI applications. The book shows how to do this both in C++ code and also by using Qt Designer as a visual design tool. This gives the reader the grounding necessary to do more advanced work with Qt4. The earlier reviewer who wants to use Qt Designer rather than C++ code may have missed page 13 which states: "We will create our first dialog purely by writing code to show how it is done. Then we will see how to build dialogs using Qt Designer, Qt's visual design tool. Using Qt Designer is a lot faster than hand-coding and makes it easy to test different designs and to change designs later." In brief, I found the book to be an excellent source of training for learning Qt and its sophisticated use of C++.

Je commence à pratiquer avec Qt, je trouve ce livre bien fait. Les paragraphes sont illustrés par des exemples bien détaillés. Attention, il nécessite une connaissance minimum du langage C++ et des outils de compilation.