These bindings were newly started in August 2024. The bindings are functional for all of QtCore, QtGui, and QtWidgets, and there is a uic/rcc implementation. But, the bindings may be immature in some ways. Please try out the bindings and raise issues if you have trouble.
Yes. You must also meet your Qt license obligations: either use Qt dynamically-linked dll/so/dylib files under the LGPL, or, purchase a Qt commercial license for static linking.
If you are compiling your app with a one-shot `docker run` command, the compile speed can be improved if you also bind-mount the Docker container's `GOCACHE` directory: `-v $(pwd)/container-build-cache:/root/.cache/go-build`
- [therecipe/qt](https://github.com/therecipe/qt) is the most mature Qt binding for Go.
- It works by making IPC calls to a separate C++ binary downloaded at runtime from a site under the maintainer's control. This may be less performant than calling Qt directly.
- Because of the LGPL license, it's [extremely difficult to make a proprietary app](https://github.com/therecipe/qt/wiki/FAQ#can-i-make-a-proprietary-app-with-this-binding-). See also their [issue 259](https://github.com/therecipe/qt/issues/259).
- [kitech/qt.go](https://github.com/kitech/qt.go) is another mature Qt binding for Go.
- Unfortunately, it's also using the LGPL license.
- [go-qamel/qamel](https://github.com/go-qamel/qamel) is an MIT-licensed Qt binding for Go.
- Unfortunately, it only supports QML, not Qt Widgets.
The `QString`, `QList<T>`, and `QVector<T>` types are projected as plain Go `string` and `[]T`. Therefore, you can't call any of QString/QList/QVector's helper methods, you must use some Go equivalent method instead.
- Go strings are internally converted to QString using `QString::fromUtf8`. Therefore, the Go string must be UTF-8 to avoid [mojibake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake). If the Go string contains binary data, the conversion would corrupt such bytes into U+FFFD (<28>). On return to Go space, this becomes `\xEF\xBF\xBD`.
Where Qt returns a C++ object by value (e.g. `QSize`), the binding may have moved it to the heap, and in Go this may be represented as a pointer type. In such cases, a Go finalizer is added to automatically delete the heap object. This means code using MIQT can look basically similar to the Qt C++ equivalent code.
Qt class inherited types are projected as a Go embedded struct. For example, to pass a `var myLabel *qt.QLabel` to a function taking only the `*qt.QWidget` base class, write `myLabel.QWidget`.
- When a Qt subclass adds a method overload (e.g. `QMenu::addAction(QString)` vs `QWidget::addAction(QAction*)`), the base class version is shadowed and can only be called via `myQMenu.QWidget.AddAction(QAction*)`.
### Q6. Can I use Qt Designer and the Qt Resource system?
MIQT has a custom implementation of Qt `uic` and `rcc` tools, to allow using [Qt Designer](https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtdesigner-manual.html) for form design and resource management. After running the `miqt-uic` and `miqt-rcc` tools once, you can rebuild any changes using the convenient `go generate` command.
For dynamic linking, the MSYS2 `qt5-base` package [links against `libicu`](https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/blob/master/mingw-w64-qt5-base/PKGBUILD#L241), whereas the Fsu0413 Qt packages do not. When using MSYS2, your distribution size including `.dll` files will be larger.
Static builds are also available by installing the `mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-qt5-static` package and building with `--tags=windowsqtstatic`. The static build will also be smaller as it [does not link to `libicu`](https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/blob/master/mingw-w64-qt5-static/PKGBUILD#L280).
-`docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/src -w /src miqt/win64-dynamic:latest go build -buildvcs=false -ldflags '-s -w -H windowsgui'`
3. Copy necessary Qt LGPL libraries and plugin files.
See FAQ Q3 for advice about docker performance.
To add an icon and other properties to the .exe, you can use [the go-winres tool](https://github.com/tc-hib/go-winres). See the `examples/windowsmanifest` for details.
For repeated builds, only steps 3 and 6 are needed. If you customize the `AndroidManifest.xml` file or images, they will be used for the next `androiddeployqt` run.
