Qt: Should I use Visual Studio, Qt Creator or some

Question

I realize that there have been similar questions, but they seem to have been from when Qt Creator was still in beta, so the answer might have changed since then:

We are going to start a project with a small amount of GUI that needs to work on Windows, OS X and Linux. So choosing Qt was a no-brainer, even though we have little experience with Qt.

What is currently the best option for IDE?

All the developers will be using Windows machines, so the IDE does not need to be cross-platform.

We use Visual Studio for most things, but most of us are also comfortable with Eclipse.

How are the refactoring tools in Qt Creator? I like Visual Assist X when using Visual Studio for C++. Have anyone tried using that with Qt-projects?

I realize that was a lot of different questions. Please answer even if you can't answer all of them.

EDIT:

I should probable add that we already have Visual Studio and Visual Assist licenses, so the cost of those is not an issue.

Answer 1

I've never used the Qt visual studio integration, and I've only taken a quick look at qt creator, but here are my thoughts anyway.

Using Qt creator gives you a familiar debugging enviroment across platforms, with support for stuff like Qt collections.

It seems like Qt creator has really good code navigation features. It also integrates with git, subversion and perforce. When starting a new project, that seems like a plus compared to VS.

Answer 2

I own Visual Studio 2005 and the wonderful add-on "Visual Assist X" (VAX I call it), but am pleased with using Qt Creator. Things get way better with Qt Creator 1.3, and I hope 1.4 adds a class browser, which is its worst weakness. But I am continually amazed by how good Qt Creator is, and how clear a vision its developers have. Amazed, I Say! It is as though all the VS competitors laid down and died and now Qt Creator is all that stands to truly develop a C++-Centric IDE. I always hated how VS watered itself down to adapt to every language, to the point that later versions downplayed the MFC wizards (yuck, but hey, I needed them back then). Eclipse is based on Java. I love using an IDE build with Qt and made for Qt. So go Qt Creator and don't look back. At first I was a bit wary that Qt Creator might be another "dies on the vine" type of project, but after the last two releases and the coming v1.3 I see that it is going to be the new kid on the block -- if only it gets that class browser!

Answer 3

Have you considered a third option, MonoDevelop?

I have found it to be fairly quick, it has rudimentary refactoring support and it plays nice with QT.

Kindness,

Dan

Answer 4

I use Visual C++ 2008 with Visual Assist and Qt Creator with MinGW:

• MinGW will drive you nuts, but thankfully you can use the VC++ compiler in Qt Creator.
• The debugger integration is not as good as VC++. You can't set the next instruction or do any of the fancy stuff like see what a function has returned in the locals window. GDB is as slow as a snail.
• Code navigation is as good as VA X (but use the tech preview, 1.2.1 is not that great)
• Code completion is acceptable, certainly not as good as VA X. Code completion doesn't work for anything a bit more complicated such as accessing the members of a const_iterator from a QList typedef.
• Lighter IDE than VC++ and has a nicer GUI IMO.
• .pro files are generally easier to manage than sln

QtCreator is a good alternative to VC++ and I would definitely use it on Linux. If you already have VC++ 2005 or 2008 and VA X, I recommend that you install the Qt addin and use VC++ for development. I also recommend that you install the Qt SDK side by side and compile in both MinGW and VC++ to catch cross-platforms issues early! Try to keep the .pro files in sync to the sln and beware of this issue.

Answer 5

QtCreator is stable enough and a comfortable IDE, although compile/debug cycles are slower on Windows than with Visual Studio. It doesn't have all the fancy features Visual Studio offers, but after using it for a while I just realized I wasn't missing them. Especially in C++, where Visual Studio doesn't provide source refactoring - they really are pushing C# aren't they? ;)

Visual Studio is certainly a nice IDE, but at the end of the day if you have to pay many licences just for the fancy features (depending on the size of your team), that money could be better spent on other tools.

You will also avoid the trouble of maintaining different project files (Visual Studio on Windows, something else on MacOS and Linux), even if you develop on Windows only, time will come when you will have to compile, test and debug minor issues on the other OS'es.

Eclipse is an alternative, but I haven't checked the stability of Designer on that IDE. You might spend some time on configuring each workstation, and you might have to wait for updates. On the other hand, you benefit from the whole Eclipse environment, which could help if you have other needs. But is that worth the risk?

I would definitely try QtCreator first and try to stick with their environment. If that proves to be a problem, it won't be too late to move to VS later.

Your timing isn't too bad either: you should probably test the 4.6 preview, normally the official release should be soon.

Answer 6

Use QtCreator, but learn key all shortcuts first.

I'm 30% faster (veeeery subjective:-) since I switched, and I tried every IDE and editor there is for several days to several years. I'm fed up with visual-something and even eclipse, my long-time favorite.

First I thought 'another ide, what a waste of these developers' time', but after some days I used Qt creator even for non-Qt C++ development.

This IDE helps you to focus on your work, hides all distraction and lets you jump instead of search. (So, no class browser desired)