Tag: Qt6

Package Qt6 macOS App Bundle With Translation Files In CMake

Robert LohrLeave a comment

Recently, I wrote about how you can create a macOS app bundle with CMake for a Qt6 application. I omitted the inclusion of translation files, which also required code changes. Well, I figured it out and will briefly explain what I had to do.

In my WorkTracker application, I store the language files in a folder called “l10n” at the project’s root. The first thing to do is instruct CMake to copy the *.qm files to the app bundle’s “Resource” folder. I have done that before for the app icon, and the process is similar for this kind of file.

set(l10n_files
    "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/l10n/qt_de_DE.qm"
    "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/l10n/de_DE.qm"
    "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/l10n/en_US.qm"
)

set_source_files_properties(${l10n_files} PROPERTIES 
    MACOSX_PACKAGE_LOCATION "Resources/l10n")

qt_add_executable(WorkTracker MACOSX_BUNDLE 
    ${worktracker_src} 
    ${app_icon_macos} 
    ${l10n_files})
  1. Define a variable l10n_files that contains all the files.
  2. Tell CMake that these files shall end up in the app bundle, in the “Resources/l10n” folder, to be precise.
  3. Include the files in the call to the qt_add_executable function.
A macOS Finder window showing the contents of the "Resources/l10n" folder in an app bundle.

Now that the translations are part of the bundle, a minor modification to the code tells the application where to find them. The Qt documentation contains a section about using macOS APIs to determine the bundle location. That is not necessary, though. Qt also has a helpful method to achieve the same goal, QApplication::applicationDirPath().

#if defined(Q_OS_LINUX)
    // On Linux the translations can be found in /usr/share/worktracker/l10n.
    auto l10nPath = "/../share/worktracker/l10n/";
#elif defined (Q_OS_WIN)
    // On Windows the translations are in the l10n folder in the exe dir.
    auto l10nPath = "/l10n/";
#elif defined (Q_OS_MAC)
    // On OS X the data is somewhere in the bundle.
    auto l10nPath = "/../Resources/l10n/";
#endif

auto appDir = QApplication::applicationDirPath() + l10nPath;

This method returns the absolute path to the “MacOS” folder inside of the bundle, the folder where the application’s binary is located. Appending /../Resources/l10n/ first navigates up to the “Content” folder (via /..), which is more or less the bundle’s “root” directory, and from there, goes to “Resources/l10n”. Finally, the language files are loaded like on Windows, and the translation works as expected.

I hope this was helpful because I could not find much information on this specific topic.

Thank you for reading.

Package Qt6 App as macOS App Bundle With CMake

Robert Lohr1 Comment

The Qt documentation contains all the necessary pieces to create a macOS app bundle. Some steps require CMake configuration, while others require manual labor, i.e., terminal commands. Ideally, you, the developer, want to automate the whole thing and not enter the commands every time you build a release.

You can do that with CMake, and this How-To will show you what to do. I am taking my WorkTracker application as an example since it isn’t just a little toy with an executable binary. It is a fully functional application I use daily at work (albeit on Windows) with icon resources, language files, and several Qt libraries and plugins.

Note: I will not elaborate on the language file topic, as it requires code changes to find the translations in the bundle file. This post focuses on automating the app-bundle creation and setting an application icon.

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I Bestow Upon Thee “HotkeyAutoExecute”, My Game Screenshot Automator

Robert LohrLeave a comment

HotkeyAutoExecute is a simple single-window tool that lets you manage a list of frequently used hotkeys, of which one is repeatedly executed in configurable intervals.

That was the TLDR blurp, and now let’s get into the details. This tool scratches an itch I had in 2020 when I wanted to simplify the process of taking game screenshots for my reviews. During intense gameplay moments, it is difficult to focus on the game and press a keyboard shortcut to take an image of on-screen action. Therefore, I hacked something that would do the job but was not quite baked to be open-sourced as an application. I have changed that now, and boy, was it more complicated than I would have liked.

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Convert QKeySequence of QKeySequenceEdit to Native Windows Virtual Key Codes VK_*

Robert Lohr1 Comment

In a blog post in 2020, I described how to utilize the WinAPI SendInput() function to emulate hotkey presses to automatically take game screenshots for my video game reviews. While I intended to create a simple GUI application to do the task, I ended up with only a hack because of a massive boulder that Windows threw in my way. Or after me, chasing me down a narrow path.

Forget the boulder.

(Although it would be a fitting metaphor to describe Windows: tall, fat, and destructive to user privacy.)

I wanted a simple input field where the user can press a key sequence that will be executed repeatedly at an interval. Qt conveniently provides QKeySequenceEdit for this purpose, and when I tried to insert the Xbox Game Bar hotkey, it did not register. Well, it did, in that Windows took a screenshot. But it was not recorded by the widget. Windows seems to intercept and eat the key presses. That was when I decided to just hard-code my needs and call it a day.

Two years later, I figured that it was about damn time to fix this, and this is where I ran into issues with the translation of key codes from QKeySequenceEdit and QKeySequence to native Windows virtual key codes.

This is where our adventure begins.

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Qt6 QtCreator Crash After Install on Ubuntu 21.04

Robert Lohr1 Comment

Hopping Linux distributions, I came to Ubuntu 21.04, and one of the first things I do is install Qt manually. I have described the process in a previous blog post on Linux Mint, and it is the same for Ubuntu. Except for a tiny detail. On Ubuntu, the bundled QtCreator immediately crashes and triggers a "Send Diagnostic" dialog.

$ /opt/Qt/Tools/QtCreator/bin/qtcreator
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was 
found. This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be 
initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Available platform plugins are: eglfs, linuxfb, minimal, minimalegl, offscreen, vnc, 
xcb.

The fix is simple.

sudo apt install libxcb-xinerama0

I hope this helps. Thank you for reading.