Nokia brings the latest version of the cross-platform application and UI framework Qt in the form of Qt 4.6. To facilitate developers in creating advanced applications and devices, the latest version features new platform support, dynamic graphical capabilities and supports multi-touch and gestures.
Qt 4.6 claims to support the Symbian platform for the first time along with Windows 7, Apple Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and the upcoming Maemo 6. It also supports real-time operating systems QNX and VxWorks. The support for Maemo 5 is presently under development.
“Qt 4.6 marks an exciting time for developers, regardless of their target form factor or platform,” said Sebastian Nyström, Vice President, Application Services and Frameworks at Nokia. “Developers can easily create visually appealing and web-connected applications for desktops or devices, including targeting the hundreds of millions of Symbian and Maemo-based devices,”
Nokia also launched the technology preview of new Qt APIs from the Qt Mobility project. With these cross-platform APIs, developers benefit from functionalities like location for navigation-type devices, messaging, contacts, and bearer management.
“The community will enjoy using Qt’s intuitive programming interface to quickly create powerful, appealing applications.” Nyström added.
Qt 4.6 is created upon the graphical enhancements of version 4.5 and comes with new Animation Framework that includes intuitive state machine functionality, advanced graphics effects such as opacity, drop shadows, glow, and filtering.
The new version allows users to create multi-touch applications. With multi-touch and gesture based input methods like flicking and kinetic scrolling, Qt 4.6 offers a dynamic framework to develop haptic methods for users to interact with applications and devices.
Qt 4.6 confronts the traditional development belief that advanced UI capabilities come with a considerable performance cost. Vital improvements include highly optimized, re-written Qt GraphicsView rendering algorithm, a new OpenGL paint engine, WebKit, 2D vector graphic support using OpenVG, and new DirectFB support.
Along with the release of Qt 4.6, Nokia also brings the updated release of Qt Creator, a cross-platform IDE for Qt development. Developers can create cross-platform applications, owing to the Qt SDK comprising of Qt Creator 1.3 and Qt 4.6.