Qt developers often ask the following questions: Is there a porting guide to help me port my Qt apps to BlackBerry 10? What about porting Qt Quick to BlackBerry 10? How do I configure Qt Creator for BlackBerry 10?

The good news has arrived: you now have a porting guide covering the most commonly-encountered use cases. This guide provides the necessary information to developers of native mobile apps who fall in one of the following categories:

• Developers who have Qt apps written in C/C++/ QML/JavaScript and intend to have their apps running on the BlackBerry 10 platform;
• Developers who want to write new Qt C++, QML and/or JavaScript code for the BlackBerry 10 platform;
• And finally, developers who want to take advantage of the Cascades UI framework and change their existing UI to the Cascades framework.

BlackBerry supports developers in all of the above described scenarios, and so this guide provides developers with best practices for each category. It also explains why a particular practice is considered the best one.

Please check the full Qt porting guide at:

http://developer.blackberry.com/native/documentation/bb10/porting_qt_apps.html

Related Posts:

YouTube: BlackBerry Jam Session (JAM12): Porting Qt Applications to BlackBerry 10
Porting Qt Applications to BlackBerry 10 is Easier than Ever!
Writing Qt apps for the BlackBerry 10 platform
YouTube: QtDD12 – How Qt Helped RIM Build BlackBerry 10
YouTube: QtDD12 – Developing with Qt for the BlackBerry 10

Developers set a new record for last weekend’s port-a-thons, and devs from APAC definitely contributed in great leaps: More than half of the apps submitted globally were coming out of Asia! We saw great submissions from India, China and the rest of this region.

On Saturday January 12th, hundreds of developers attended the offline Technical Support sessions in eight Asian countries. The sessions included coding, porting, discussions, eating and lots of fun. But most of all, they were about providing technical support to our developers.

In Indonesia, the local Android Community showed great interest for the Android Port-A-Thon, and we can’t wait to see more apps ported after the official launch of BlackBerry 10.

The registration to the Manila offline event went so well that PinoyBBDev community had to host sessions in two different venues. The PinoyBBDev event was such a cool gathering that the developers didn’t want to leave. Photos below from the PinoyBBDev event show that activities were very well-organized with lots of great food and music!

In Beijing, our China evangelist Mike Zhou didn’t sleep the night of January 11th because there were hundreds of questions asked on Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) till morning. iiberry, a BlackBerry Developer community based in Beijing, helped to organize the session and provided great technical support by answering questions from developers online.

At the Shanghai session, CNBB Dev Group leader Jonah Lin (CEO of MMMOOO) provided technical support onsite, and Chinese game company finger2finger submitted 260 games! After their big submissions for the last Port-A-Thon, the China Flash Dev Community also managed to contribute a huge number of apps.

The below picture is one of the strategic games submitted last weekend:

MMMOOO’s Weibo tweets on the Port-A-Thon generated more than 5000 retweets and 4000 comments.

Photos below are from Shanghai Port-A-Thon event (courtesy of CNBBDev):

In India, there were also two separate offline Port-A-Thon tech support sessions held – one at Rubus Labs @ Start-up Village, and the other at SV University. Each session had very keen and enthusiastic developers who were really focused on the one goal for the day – to port all their apps onto the BlackBerry 10 platform!

This photo shows students busy coding in the India Port-a-thon Tech Support Session:

The Port-A-Thon series not only helped developers to start building for the BlackBerry 10 platform, but also got the attention of many regional mobile application companies. Mingdge Technology, a mobile app company, said on Weibo this week: “There was never a platform as generous to developers as BlackBerry 10 and helps startup developer make money. Looks like I will eventually give up on iOS, specialize on BlackBerry 10, RIM rock on!”

Special thanks goes to the awesome APAC BlackBerry Dev Groups for their support on the offline Port-A-Thon Technical Sessions: BBDevID, ID-Android Dev CNBBGroup, Rubus @ StartupVillage, iiberry, BBIndia,  BBVietnamand Pinoybbdev!

Look out for more from the developers here at the Last Chance Port-a-Thon this weekend!

Cascades™ and Qt are two major frameworks available on the BlackBerry® 10 platform. Qt on BlackBerry 10 provides a complete set of standard Qt 4.8 APIs with the exception of the QtWebKit module. BlackBerry 10 provides a selected set of APIs from the QtMobility project as well. I will provide an overview of Qt 4.8 APIs coverage on BlackBerry 10, with a focus on APIs that are different or not available on BlackBerry 10, and will refer to alternative Cascades APIs in relevant cases. More details are provided here:
https://developer.blackberry.com/cascades/reference/qt_index.html

To start, I wanted to share two fundamental facts about the use of Qt within Cascades and Qt on BlackBerry 10 in general:

1. Cascades uses its own backend to render on the screen. This backend does not use Qt because Cascades needed several features, which Qt addresses only starting with Qt5. Developers have to decide upfront if an application will use Cascades or Qt to render on the screen, because it is not possible to mix Qt and Cascades APIs to access the screen in one application. Developers can write “pure” Qt Quick or QWidget apps and have the app directly deployed and run on the BlackBerry 10 platform with little or no platform adaptations. Cascades apps can use all Qt APIs which do not access the screen; e.g. the modules QtCore, QtNetwork, QtSql, QtXml.

2. QtMobility APIs have been developed, published and maintained in a separate project outside of the Qt 4.8 base line; therefore QtMobility does not belong to a standard Qt4 package. QtMobility should be separately built and integrated into mobile and embedded platforms based on Qt4. Since the work on QtMobility was focused on standards and services used by Nokia devices, the use of these APIs on modern platforms provided by other vendors requires changes. This applies to the BlackBerry 10 platform as well. The current release of BlackBerry 10 therefore provides a subset of QtMobility API implementation.

In addition to the Cascades UI framework, RIM® has created a rich set of middleware Qt-based APIs to access the key BlackBerry 10 features. Since these APIs do not render to the screen, they can be used in Cascades apps as well as in applications based on Qt widgets and Qt Quick.

Using Qt widgets with C++ on the BlackBerry 10 platform

Qt widgets are fully supported on the platform and included in the BlackBerry 10 NDK. Even though almost no changes in the code are needed to get a Qt widget-based application running on BlackBerry 10, this approach will rarely provide acceptable results. Qt widgets have been developed for desktop applications and only few of them are suitable for a mobile platform. For example, QButton, QCheckBox or QProgressBar can be effectively used, but using QMainWidow or QDialog in an app for a mobile device does not make much sense. Moreover, the implementation of animations and effects in widget based UIs requires considerable effort or can even be not possible in some cases. Cascades and Qt Quick provide much better solutions tailored to use cases on mobile devices.

Qt in the current Beta releases of the NDK and on Dev Alpha devices uses a default style for Qt widgets. The final version will contain a style tailored to the appearance of the BlackBerry 10 native UI elements.

Developing with Qt Quick

Qt Quick 1.1 is fully supported on the BlackBerry 10 platform as a part of Qt 4.8 package. Additional Qt Quick plugins provided in the QtMobility package are supported according to their general availability on BlackBerry 10.

Developers who used Qt Quick on a desktop platform should note that the “qmlviewer” application is not available on BlackBerry 10. The security and deployment models on BlackBerry 10 require using own C++ code to load Qt Quick files. An example of this code in provided in Qt as well as in the template application which can be created in the category “BlackBerry Qt Quick Application” via the “New Project” wizard in QtCreator 2.6 and newer.

Qt Quick applications intensively using animations and transitions should use QGLWidget as a view port in QDeclarativeView. Using QGLWidget will enable hardware acceleration and therefore usually provides better rendering performance.

When it comes to the UI development, Qt Quick is a good choice when an application needs its own custom appearance with a custom set of UI elements, or when the application code should be ported from another platform to BlackBerry 10. Since Qt Quick 1.1 does not provide high-level UI components, developers have to provide an implementation of these UI elements. If an application needs an authentic BlackBerry 10 look-and-feel and a seamless integration with the platform, using Cascades UI framework is a much better approach.

QtMultimedia

This module is deprecated and not supported. Please use QtMultimediaKit from QtMobility instead.

QtOpenGL

QtOpenGL is fully included in the BlackBerry 10 NDK. However, QtOpenGL APIs cannot be used in a Cascades app. Please check the Cascades documentation to find how to use OpenGL in Cascades apps.

QtScriptTools

QtScriptTools is fully included in the BlackBerry 10 NDK. However, QtScriptTools APIs cannot be used in a Cascades app. Cascades apps use QScriptEngine as described in the BlackBerry 10 documentation.

QtSvg

QtSvg is fully included in the BlackBerry 10 NDK. However, QtSvg APIs cannot be used in Cascades apps.

QtWebKit

QtWebKit is not supported, but RIM is planning to include a solution in later releases of BlackBerry 10.

QtTest

QtTest is fully included in the BlackBerry 10 NDK. However, QtTest APIs cannot be used in Cascades apps.

Not supported

• Phonon
• Qt3Support
• QtDesigner
• QtUiTools
• QtHelp
• QAxContainer
• QAxServer
• QtDBus

APIs from the Qt Mobility 1.2 project:

QtNetwork

Most of these APIs have been included in the Qt 4.8 and are supported on BlackBerry 10.

QtLocation

A subset of QtLocation is supported by QtLocationSubset. Details about QtLocationSubset can be found at https://developer.blackberry.com/cascades/documentation/device_platform/location/

QtMultimediaKit

The QtMultimediaKit module is included in the BlackBerry 10 NDK except for QMediaRecorderControl (and so no QMediaRecorder) and Camera APIs. Development teams in RIM are working to provide support for these and other modules in the future. It is important to note that QtMultimedia APIs in Qt 4.8 have dependencies on the QtGui module and so they cannot be used in Cascades apps. Cascades app should use MediaPlayer APIs instead.

QtSensors

The QtSensors module is fully included in the BlackBerry 10 NDK. RIM has extended the default API set with new and useful features. Most QtSensors APIs can be used in Cascades apps. The exact list of supported APIs is available in
https://developer.blackberry.com/cascades/documentation/device_comm/sensors/index.html

QtConnectivity

RIM is currently working on adding support for NFC and Bluetooth®. BlackBerry 10 also provides the QtNfcSubset module which provides access to NFC on enabled BlackBerry 10 devices. More details will be provided in the BlackBerry 10 documentation.

Following modules are not supported:

• QtServiceFramework
• QtContacts
• QtMessaging
• QtSystemInfo
• QtPublishSubscribe
• QtOrganizer
• QtFeedback
• QtGallery
• QtVersit

Related Resources

We are planning to provide more detailed documentation about Qt applications on BlackBerry 10 in the next blog posts. In the meantime, please find below some selected links related to Qt on BlackBerry 10:

• Community Wiki for Qt on BlackBerry
• Building Qt4 for BlackBerry
• Building Qt5 for BlackBerry
• Qt Creator 2.6.0 released
• http://qt-project.org/wiki/BlackBerry

Related Posts:

• What’s up with Qt and the future of Cascades?
• Porting Qt Applications to BlackBerry 10 is Easier than Ever

Happy Qt development for BlackBerry 10! Please note that RIM is committed to Qt and is continuously working to expand the selection of own add-on modules as well as standard modules provided by Qt in the future.

Qt developers and BlackBerry® 10 developers often ask the following questions:

What is the relationship between Cascades™ and Qt, and how do they interact with each other?

Cascades and Qt frameworks are two major frameworks available in BlackBerry 10 application development. From a high-level architectural point of view, you can say that Cascades sits on top of Qt modules as it is built, using the Qt application framework leveraging Qt object model, event model and threading model. This also uses QtCore, QtXML, QtSql, QtNetwork and QDeclarativeEngine for QML components. Both frameworks use standard C++, signals and slots in Qt for inter-object communication. However, Cascades uses own UI rendering engine and does NOT use any QtGui functionality, while Qt uses raster and the OpenGL graphics engine.

BlackBerry 10 supports BOTH Cascades and Qt

The key point here is that BlackBerry 10 supports BOTH Cascades and Qt frameworks. If you have developed an application using Qt framework for other platforms, you can deploy and run the application on BlackBerry 10 with the minimum effort of fixing a few compile and runtime issues. The downside of this approach is that your application may not have consistent look and feel with the BlackBerry 10 platform, nor have the best integration with the platform itself.

Cascades includes a set of core UI components and platform APIs to create interactive applications accessing the underlying features of the BlackBerry 10 platform. Cascades UI components are designed to have a consistent look and feel, and are optimized for BlackBerry 10 integration such as touch screen interactions. You can use Cascades Builder, the main development tool, for creating BlackBerry Native applications, which is built into the QNX Momentics IDE. The UI preview and the components view are specific features of Cascades Builder when editing QML. Cascades Builder is also integrated to access the BlackBerry platform features and services like audio/video, camera, Ad Service, app integration, BBM™ Social Platform, external data storage access, file system access, internationalization, location, payment service, PIM (Personal Information Management), push services, networking, notifications and sensors. To learn more about the Cascades framework, see Introduction to Cascades.

When porting a Qt application to BlackBerry 10, you can access the same subset of Qt APIs directly without using wrappers for BlackBerry 10. This is powerful and convenient for Qt developers and Qt applications. If you have any Qt applications using Qt APIs such as QGeoCoordinate or QSensor, the same APIs are available and accessible on BlackBerry 10. Currently, the subset of QtCore, QtNetwork, QtLocation, QtSensors, QtSql and QtXML modules are supported. You can check out our sample applications to learn more about these APIs.

Which Framework to Choose to Port your Qt Application?

We recommend that you choose Cascades framework if you are developing a native look-and-feel application on BlackBerry 10 and want to maximize the platform integration. If you are planning to develop an application with specific and customized GUIs, you can choose Qt framework. The decision has to be made before you start writing your application, however, since you can’t mix the UI components between Cascades and Qt. We will walk you through the porting tips based on the framework in the following section.

Basic Step-by-Step for porting a Qt application to BlackBerry 10

1. Set up the tool chains:

• Download BlackBerry 10 SDK/NDK and Set up
• If you choose to use Qt Creator, download and configure Qt Creator 2.6 for BlackBerry 10 development. This version is recommended since it has the full support for BlackBerry 10 development including BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and QNX. In order to deploy an existing Qt application project in Qt Creator, you need to add the kit which you defined for BlackBerry 10 to your project. Read the configuration instructions.

2. Build the application. You will have to fix some make, compile, and linking issues.
3. Set up Package and Deployment by adding the application icon and/or splash screen.
4. Fix look and feel issues by adjusting resolutions, icons, windows or font sizes. You can use Cascades components, make your own customized QML components, or use Qt Quick or QWidgets.
5. Address platform specific runtime issues. If necessary, add BlackBerry Platform Services. Often, different platforms handle inputs differently. Test rotating and adjust orientation issues.
6. Add unique features to the BlackBerry 10 platform to add competiveness. You can apply device integrations like QtMobility Sensors, Native BlackBerry Platform Services and PPS APIs.
7. Submit to the BlackBerry App World™ storefront.
8. Start collecting your money!

If you’d like to learn more about porting Qt applications to BlackBerry 10, stay tuned. We are planning to dig deeper into this topic over the next blog post series.

Here are some Cascades, Qt and open-source related links:

• Introduction to Cascades
• Qt for BlackBerry
• Open Source Components for the BlackBerry Native SDK
• Building Qt4 for BlackBerry
• Building Qt5 for BlackBerry
• Qt Creator 2.6.0 released

Related Posts:

YouTube: BlackBerry Jam Session (JAM12): Porting Qt Applications to BlackBerry 10
Developing in Cascades
What’s up with Qt and the future of Cascades?

[YouTube link for mobile viewing]

You might remember the interesting story of Greek developer Charilaos Kalogirou, who ported his iOS game Pop Corny to the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and to the BlackBerry® 10 Dev Alpha device in just a few days. He blogged about how fast and easy the process was.

Now, after a few weeks, he’s back. Charilaos is participating to a competition organized by the Ludum Dare website, and I was happy to read that he decided to create a game exclusively for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. The competition is the following: finish a game, take it to market, earn $1. All in October.

Why did he decide to develop for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet only? Well, he explains the reasons in this blog post. In particular:

“…we are going to exclusively target the BlackBerry PlayBook and the BlackBerry App World store, as it is a platform I fell in love recently and it’s a platform where you can actually make a buck these days.”

I think that says it all. More proof that if you want to make money with your apps and games, BlackBerry App World is the store for you.

Here it is, game ready: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/10/29/flycraft-we-made-it/ You can get it from BlackBerry App World here.

With the upcoming launch of BlackBerry® 10, we’ve got a few new features on their way and we want you to be prepared for them.

We understand that the success of your app is based on marketing properly to as many customers as possible. With this in mind, we’ll be introducing a new Improved Relevance Marketing Meta-Data feature set.

So what does this mean for you? Well, a lot. When we launch this new feature set, you’ll be able to upload multiple sets of meta-data (this includes screenshots and descriptions) that will be platform and language-specific. That’s right — no need to spread your applications across multiple product SKUs.

For example, if you want to deploy an app supporting BlackBerry® OS, BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablets and BlackBerry 10, you can do it all under a single application submission instead of three – all the while maintaining distinctive descriptions and screenshots for each platform.

What’s the benefit to you? Less SKUs in the store to manage – a single app supplies the binaries and meta-data for every platform you support. What’s the benefit to end-users? When they upgrade their BlackBerry smartphone to BlackBerry 10 or buy a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, their apps can quickly and easily be reinstalled via My World. This also means that you keep your customer base when your users change platforms. Additionally, the user will see meta-data (description, screenshots, etc) that is optimized for his/her device platform.

Some updates to the BlackBerry App World™ storefront search will be made to further improve app discoverability. In January 2013, it will be updated to include searching on the following fields:

• Title
• Keywords
• Vendor Name
• Short Description

Long description will no longer be indexed for search.

Below you’ll find all the details currently available and how they compare to what will be available when these features launch shortly.

So, there you have it! Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.

In honor of 10/10 and the opening of BlackBerry App World™ for BlackBerry 10 app submissions, we’ve put together a list of the 10 most viewed blog posts in the developer blog about BlackBerry 10. It’s been an eventful couple of months! Check out how far we’ve come:

1. BlackBerry 10 Cascades™ is here!
2. Introducing Built for BlackBerry and the $10K Developer Commitment
3. Standardizing on Screen Resolutions for BlackBerry 10 devices
4. The BlackBerry 10 Native SDK Experience
5. BlackBerry 10 WebWorks™ SDK Released!
6. BlackBerry 10 – The Evolution from Beta to Gold
7. Flight Arrival Boards have been posted!
8. The BlackBerry 10 User Agent String Has Arrived!
9. BlackBerry 10 Samples Galore
10. Creating Outstanding Apps with bbUI.js – Community Tutorial

Now, you can submit your app to the BlackBerry App World for BlackBerry 10.

What was your favorite BlackBerry 10 related blog post? Share with us in the comments below!

Picture credit: http://www.planetlinuxcaffe.com

I love Miami. I love the heat, the food, the culture and the people. Miami is also the home of one of our newest and incredibly active BlackBerry® Developer Groups – the Miami BlackBerry Dev Group. This group formed in the late spring and already they’ve had five meetups. If you are in the South Florida area, I highly suggest you check them out and definitely follow them on Twitter (@BBDevMiami).

The group is led by Ipsan Gonzalez (@IpsanG) and Damian Montero, and the most recent event took place at Planet Linux Caffe. The owner Andre and his wife were great hosts, with the place very well set-up for local meetups and developer meetings. There was a great turnout, with a crowd of developers eager to learn. We kept the night informal, intimate and interactive. I was flooded with questions, and everyone was very engaged. I even made a new best friend!

@BlackBerry @Party_Pat you just earned yourself a new best friend.—
CS (@CyberStrike) September 07, 2012

I don’t enjoy typing in front of anyone; I get nervous, I make mistakes, and I really make the backspace key earn its presence on my keyboard. Luckily for me, the crowd was patient, I had practiced ahead of time, and the Cascades™ development environment has code completion! After a quick evangelical message from me, we got down to the code walkthrough. We worked through some hiccups and we all learned a trick or three. Everyone seemed to really dig how easy it was to create an amazing user interfaces using Cascades.

I can’t thank the group down here enough for inviting me to come meet them. Guys, keep up the Cascades work and discovery! New friends, good laughs, and energetic developers. What more could a developer ask for? I can’t wait for the next visit.

[ YouTube link for mobile viewing ]

On August 25th, an event of particular awesomeness happened in Recife, Brasil — the inaugural BlackBerry® Jam Sessions Hackathon. Fuelled by pizza and energy drinks, over 80 developers had 10 hours to create their apps for BlackBerry® 10, using HTML, C++, Cascades™, Adobe® AIR® or Java®/Android™. Once the dust had settled 10 hours later, there were 16 apps ready to be showcased, as well as many happy and satisfied developers.

Our very own Demian Borba was on the scene, and captured some great photos to boot. Check out his recap of the event, and while you’re at it, have a look at the BlackBerry Jam Sessions calendar to see if one will be happening in a town near you.

Here’s a guest post from Luca F. – Ed.

A few weeks ago we came across a blog post written by a game developer describing how he ported his iOS game, Pop Corny, to Android™. In a nutshell, it was not an easy process for him. We decided to send this developer a BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and challenged him to port his game to our platform.

The result was documented in this blog post. Here’s an excerpt:

It turns out RIM has done an awesome job with Playbook and probably with its upcoming phones. The system is based on the QNX operating system and it has strong support for standards and open libraries. I found myself right at home with it! I am going to come back with more details about the process (probably with an altdevblogaday article), but by cutting the long story short, I was able to port the engine with only native code (no java glue code like on Android) with OpenGL, OpenAL (even ALUT), freetype, etc all coming bundled with the system.

The dev also showed how fast the game is on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet — you can watch it here.

All the above was implemented in just two days! Once again the openness of the BlackBerry® 10 platform demonstrates how easy is to port your code from other mobile platforms, without any additional pain or time lost.

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is a very powerful device for gamers, and tons of developers already successfully ported their games and published them to the BlackBerry App World™ storefront. Also, as we have pointed out many times, some game developers have shared their success stories with us and highlighted how much money they’ve made in BlackBerry App World.

Kudos to the dev, Charilaos, for the great job done — and beware, that game is really addictive! I bought it for my kids but I ended up playing with it all the time. You can get it from BlackBerry App World and let me know what you think.