Setting up QtCreator for cross-compilation with CMake took me 15-20 hours the first two or three times. The next half a dozen times took me… Read More »How to Set Up QtCreator for Cross-Compilation with CMake in 5 Minutes
September 2021 saw the launch of Qt 6.2 – the first Qt 6 version with feature parity to Qt 5.15. I wanted to find out whether Qt 6.2 is fit for products. So, I migrated the HMI application of the ROPA sugar beet harvesters from Qt 5.12 over Qt 5.15 to Qt 6.2. The migration went very smooth and quick. And yes, Qt 6.2 is fit for products!
Read More »Migrating a Harvester HMI from Qt 5.12 to Qt 6.2
Which system-on-chip is best suited for your Qt embedded system? Should you build a custom Linux system with Yocto, use a container OS or a desktop Linux? Should you use Qt Commercial or Qt LGPLv3? How will the system be updated? What are the operating conditions of the system? How does the system communicate with sensors, ECUs and the cloud?
This is only a small selection of the 50+ questions in this post. You best tackle these questions early in the project. Fixing wrong decisions becomes exponentially harder with the duration of the project. Your decisions can make or break a project.
Read More »Architecture of Qt Embedded Systems: Getting Started
We change the code of our Qt application in QtCreator and press the Run button to try the changes on an embedded device. QtCreator cross-compiles the application, deploys it to the device and runs it on the device. QtCreator performs these steps in a breeze, because we spent quite some time to define a QtCreator Kit. The fairly unknown script configure-qtcreator.sh from the Yocto layer meta-boot2qt automates most of the kit definition.
Read More »Cross-Compiling Qt Embedded Applications with QtCreator and CMake
In a webinar organised by The Qt Company on 8 July 2020, I showed how QtCreator builds an embedded application against a Qt SDK encapsulated in a Docker container. QtCreator doesn’t know which Yocto version was used for building the Qt SDK and which environment variables must be set for the SDK. QtCreator forwards the CMake calls for configuring, building and staging the application to the container, which executes these calls in the right environment.
Read More »Webinar: Building Embedded Applications from QtCreator with Docker
We want to develop the Internet radio application for the Raspberry Pi in the same way as for a PC. We change the source code in QtCreator and run the application. QtCreator cross-builds the application on the PC for the Raspberry Pi, deploys it with SSH to the Pi and runs it on the Pi. We need a Qt SDK for this to work. In addition to the target libraries from the Linux image, the Qt SDK contains the library headers, a cross-compiler, a cross-linker, a cross-debugger and more.
Read More »Qt Embedded Systems – Part 2: Building a Qt SDK with Yocto
In Part 1 of the series on Qt Embedded Systems, we build a custom Linux image with Yocto for the Raspberry Pi 3B. When we… Read More »Qt Embedded Systems – Part 1: Building a Linux Image with Yocto
Overdraw happens when one QML item fully eclipses another QML item. The QML renderer always draws both items, although there is no need to draw the eclipsed item. You must help out the renderer by explicitly setting visible: false on the eclipsed item.
On embedded systems, heavy overdraw makes animations or flicking jerky. In the worst case, it freezes your HMI. Fortunately, the Qt experts at KDAB developed a tool, GammaRay, which makes detecting overdraw a piece of cake. I’ll show you how to build GammaRay, how to detect overdraw in the home screen of a harvester HMI, and how to fix the overdraw.
Read More »Detecting Overdraw in QML HMIs with GammaRay
The screenshot above shows the home screen of a sugar beet harvester. The home screen receives roughly 50 CAN messages per second and displays the contents of the CAN messages numerically or graphically.
Read More »My talk “A Deep Dive into QtCanBus” at Qt World Summit 2019