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A Quick Tour of Qt Creator

The labeled screenshot below shows some of the components of Qt Creator, in Edit mode.

The Mode Selectors

When working in Qt Creator, you can be in one of six modes: Welcome, Edit, Debug, Projects, Help, and Output.

Mode selectors allow you to quickly switch between tasks: Editing, browsing the Qt Creator manual, setting up the build environment, etc. You can activate a mode by either clicking on its mode selector, or using the corresponding shortcut. Certain actions also trigger a mode change, e.g., Debug/Start Debugging will switch to the Debug mode.

• Welcome Mode - Displays a welcome screen allowing you to quickly load recent sessions or individual projects. This is the mode you will see if Qt Creator is run without command line switches.
• Edit Mode - Lets you edit both project and source files. A sidebar on the left provides different views to navigate between files.
• Debug Mode - Provides various ways to inspect the state of the program while debugging. See Debugging With Qt Creator for a hands-on description of how to use this mode.
• Projects Mode - Lets you configure how projects can be built and executed. Under the list of projects, there are tabs to configure the build, run, and editor settings.
• Help Mode - Shows any documentation registered by Qt Assistant, such as the Qt library and Qt Creator documentation.
• Output Mode - Lets you examine various data in detail, for example build issues as well as compile and application output. This information is also available in the output panes.

The Output Panes

The task pane in Qt Creator can display one of four different panes: Build Issues, Search Results, Application Output, and Compile Output. These panes are available in all modes.

Build Issues

The {Build Issues} pane provides a list of issues, e.g., error messages or warnings that need to be fixed. It filters out irrelevant output from the compiler and collects them in an organized way.

Search Results

The Search Results pane displays the results for global searches such as searching within a current document, files on disk, or all projects. In the screenshot below, we searched for all occurrences of textfinder within the "/TextFinder" folder.

Application Output

The Application Output pane displays the status of the program when it is executed and debug output, e.g., output from qDebug().

Compile

The Compile Output pane provides all the output from the compiler. In other words, it is a more verbose version of information displayed in the Build Issues

Session Management in Qt Creator

In Qt Creator, a session is a collection of loaded projects, opened files, editor settings, and so on. When you run Qt Creator, you have a default session. You can create a new session using the Session Manager... option, available in the File -> Session menu.

To switch between sessions, select File -> Session. If you do not create and select any session, Qt Creator will always use the default session.

Qt Help Integration

Qt Creator comes fully integrated with all of Qt's documentation and examples via the Qt Help plugin. To view the documentation, you can switch to the Help mode. To obtain context sensitive help, move your text cursor to a Qt class or function and press F1. The documentation will be displayed within a panel on the right, as shown in the screenshot below.

External Documentation provided by the user can be used to augment or replace the documentation shipped with Qt Creator and Qt.

Qt Designer Integration

Qt Creator is fully integrated with Qt Designer to help you design user interface forms just like you would with the standalone version. The Qt Designer integration also includes project management and code completion. For more information on Qt Designer, you can refer to The Designer Manual.

Keyboard Navigation

Qt Creator caters not only to developers who are used to using the mouse, but also to developers who are more comfortable with the keyboard. A wide range of keyboard and navigation shortcuts are available to help speed up the process of developing your application.

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