qtquick-toolsnutilities.qdoc

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// Copyright (C) 2018 The Qt Company Ltd.
// SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-Qt-Commercial OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only
 
/*!
\page qtquick-tools-and-utilities.html
\title Qt Quick Tools and Utilities
\brief Lists the tools and utilities that enhance developer experience
 
Qt offers several tools and utilities to enable a rich developer experience,
especially for Qt Quick developers. The following sections provide a brief
introduction to those tools and utilities, and provide links to further
information about them.
 
\section1 Qt Creator
 
The \l{Qt Creator Manual}{Qt Creator} IDE is the key tool that enhances the overall developer
experience of working with Qt and Qt Quick. Its editing, formatting, profiling and
debugging features for Qt Quick make working with Qt Quick easier.
 
\section1 Qt Design Studio
 
\l{Qt Design Studio Manual}{Qt Design Studio} enables designing Qt Quick-based
UIs using simple drag-n-drop gestures that most designers are familiar with.
It offers UI elements from the Qt Quick and Qt Quick Controls modules, as well
as integration for custom UI elements.
 
\section1 Qt Quick Effect Maker
 
\l{Qt Quick Effect Maker} is a tool for creating shader effects for Qt Quick with
high productivity and performance. You can run Qt Quick Effect Maker as a
standalone tool but it is also included in Qt Design Studio.
 
\section1 QML Debugger
 
The \l{Qt Creator: QML Debugger}{QML Debugger} is a very useful utility that
enables:
\list
 \li debugging JavaScript functions,
 \li executing JavaScript expressions,
 \li and inspecting QML properties.
\endlist
 
The QML debugger is part of both \e{Qt Creator} and \e{Qt Design Studio}.
 
\section1 QML Profiler
 
The \l{Qt Creator: QML Profiler}{QML Profiler} enables you to get necessary
diagnostic information, allowing you to analyze the application code for
performance issues. For example, too much JavaScript in each frame,
long-running C++ functions, and so on.
 
The profiler is part of both \e{Qt Creator} and \e{Qt Design Studio}.
 
\section1 QmlLive
 
\l{QmlLive Manual}{QmlLive} is a 3rd party tool that offers a QML runtime
capable of rendering changes to the code in realtime. It avoids the need to
rebuild the application after every code change and install it on the target
device. You can also extend it to build a custom runtime that suits your needs.
 
\section1 GammaRay
 
\l{GammaRay Manual}{GammaRay} is a useful utility that provides diagnostic
information about your application. It is similar to the QML Profiler described
in the earlier section, but offers a lot more. For example, the number of items
or QObjects created, function calls made, time taken by each function call,
property value introspection at runtime, and so on. Such information is very
handy, especially while debugging QML applications.
 
\section1 Squish
 
\l{Squish GUI Test Automation Tool}{Squish} is a well-known testing tool that
automates UI testing by recording your actions or running scripts. Once the
tests are setup, UI tests are a lot easier to run.
 
\section1 qmllint
 
\l{qtquick-tool-qmllint.html}{qmllint} is a tool shipped with Qt, that verifies
the syntatic validity of QML files. It also warns about some QML anti-patterns.
If you want to disable a specific warning type, you can find the appropriate
flag for doing so by passing \c{--help} on the command line.
 
\section1 qmlformat
 
\e qmlformat is a tool that automatically formats QML files in accordance
with the \l{QML Coding Conventions}.
 
If you pass the \c{-n} or \c{--normalize} flag, \e qmlformat groups all
properties, functions, and signals together, instead of retaining the order you
specified.
 
By default, qmlformat writes the formatted version of the file to stdout.
If you wish to have your file updated in-place specify the \c{-i} flag.
 
You may also change tab widths and line ending types among other settings,
either via command line options or by using a settings file called
\c{.qmlformat.ini}. A default settings file can be obtained by passing the
\c{--write-defaults} flag.
 
As with all tools, the \c{-h} or \c{--help} flag will print some information on
all the available options.
 
\section1 Qt Quick Compiler
 
The Qt Quick Compiler consist of two components:
\list
    \li \l {QML type compiler}
    \li \l {QML script compiler}
\endlist
 
\section1 QML Language Server
 
\l{QML Language Server} is a tool shipped with Qt that helps you edit
QML code in your favorite (LSP-compatible) editor.
 
*/