Customer Reviews

C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 (2nd Edition) (Prentice Hall Open Source Software Development Series)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book contains the most thorough coverage of the many functionalities in Qt. The second edition is also the most current of all the books (a fleeting feature, but noteworthy depending on what you want to learn). Its well written and after over 1 year of working with the book I have yet to find any erroneous information of code.

We own all of the Qt books, but we use this one for teaching Qt in our Internship program. The Basic Qt Section starts simple and builds up from individual widgets and signals/slots to dialogs to windows to the full fancy application functionality (menus, toolbars, docking objects, tabs, MDI windows) that Qt makes pretty effortless in a number of ways.
The book covers the very powerful Model-View structure very well. We have also benefitted from the XML, layout and networking chapters. The book has also been of help in dealing with look and feel issues (stylesheets and subclassing QStyle). It also covers a number of fascinating topics that I've read about but just never used professionally, such as plug-ins.

Some criticized its style of covering the development and structure of a small (spreadsheet-type) application. This is actually the most beneficial way to learn how to use the library since you wind up with the ability to see how the pieces interact with each other. Its easy to show how a QAction works; showing how to make it flow through an MDI to the right window, however, is much easier in a whole application context. This book is not a book on computer science (algorithms, etc); its certainly a book on the specifics of how to work with the Qt library and its also a book on application development generally. The downloadable code from InformIT is a nice bonus.

The Qt library, like any actively developed library, is constantly evolving so it should be no surprise that there are some features added since publication. I think its more a positive about Qt than a negative about the book. Each chapter is well organized, with each chapter covering one of the many aspects of Qt programming. Its impossible to cover every class and method because the Qt library is huge. This book clocks in at over 700 pages and, in my opinion, more than hits the highlights. I have no problem hitting the web or documentation for more in depth info. But with this book, I feel like I've got enough background to tackle the issues.

Lastly, in response to those who criticize Qt: I have tried a number of the other major libraries and I have found nothing better for GUI than Qt. But Qt covers so much more. It provides data types and containers (eg QString, QList, QHash), model-view-controller GUI, networking, regular expressions, signals-slots. I've moved my apps from using a mix of MFC, boost, and other libraries to just using Qt. Qt is highly consistent and all data can be moved from one class to the next with minimal effort. It truly is the best available and this is easily our book of choice for training with the Qt library.

This book is fantastic, probably the best programming book I have ever read. I didn't even know c/c++ when I started reading (Java developer), but lo! and behold, there is an appendix for Java/c# developers to teach them how to use c++. I have read the book cover to cover and had absolutely no problems understanding any of the concepts in the book. I didn't need to reread anything. I am not sure what some of the other reviewers are talking about; maybe it is because I am familiar with Swing and .Net gui development and the concepts are basically the same. The parts in particular about slots and signals mentioned below I felt was done extremely well. I don't know how other programmers learn, but I learn by seeing some code in action then piecing together what it does line by line. If that isn't how you learn, I would get a different book.

This book is organized like this,

brief intro to a topic
code example of topic
line/group of lines by line explanation of code. Here they explain both the big and little pictures, "signals are used for ... and here is how you connect them in the code... here are some reasons to use signals... etc"
brief outro of a topic

I really can't say how perfect this book is, it is perfect. I went from not knowing c++ to writing professional looking apps in a weekend. I am not saying that will be the case for everyone (obviously look at the other guy's review, sounds like he couldn't figure out how to compile his code...). Keep in mind, as I've mentioned I have been programming for years in Swing and .Net, so I would definitely say I had a head start for understanding the concepts which Qt was built on.

P.S. Qt is pronounced "cute".

If you have never developped GUI applications using object oriented techniques I would reccommend you stay away from this book it jumps into the details too quickly.
Try Foundations of Qt® Development (Expert's Voice in Open Source) instead. Sooner or later, you'll have to have this book, though, to get you to the next level. There seems to be room for yet another book which discusses the organisation of the Qt libraries.
But if you have experience in other frameworks (like .NET) then this can be a very good book. The style is very tight, with plenty of sample code, and you can get many applications going by just following the code and adapting it to your needs. I got my windowing application with menus and toolbars in an evening by just following a chapter in this book.
It is not a reference book, but it is closer to that than the other books I have seen. Still the Qt Reference is good.

I'm surprised that some other reviewer said that Qt is disorganised compared to Java. Maybe it's because I'm thinking of my experiences with Java a long time ago, but I remember thinking that Java Libraries were all over the place. However C++ is a very complicated language, and I guess Java is much easier to get into.

This review is based on the first printing June 2006. Qt has notched up some minor versions since that, but for the purposes of this evaluation that makes little difference. C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4 is divided into three numbered sections, Basic,Intermediate and Advanced. In total it is comprised of 21 chapters covering topics from the venerable "hello world", via common GUI elements, graphics, XML, databases to internationalization and multithreaded programming. Many of the elements needed to put together a fully fledged application are given the first and basic coverage. The book has a very nice form factor and can easily be read in bed or brought along if you are traveling. I find the language used very comprehensible and "light" in a positive sense. There is quite an abundance of code snippets to examplify things. You may or may not like that. However, code is after all what it all boils down to so for me that was fine. Also, it is good to get introduced to c++/Qt oriented code. If you end up working with Qt one thing that you will be doing is to browse the sourcecode of Qt hunting for techniques and solutions. Therefore, being able to quickly read and understand C++ the Qt way is a good skill to have, and one that you might as well start to learn reading the book. I have read most parts of the book more than once. However, my best experience was with chapter 18 "Multithreading". I needed to implement a particular part of the application I was working on as a multithreaded piece. I was able to "lift" all necessary ingredients from chapter 18 and directly into a nicely working piece (that has kept me happy for more than two years after). However, you should keep in mind that the book is only an introductory text even if it has the "intermediate" and "advanced" parts. So you might say that the "Advanced" part is really an introduction to some advanced Qt topics from a very basic level. At least one of the authors of the book (Jasmin Blanchette and Mark Summerfield) has played a major role in creating the documentation for Qt, naming of classes etc. In my opinion the Qt naming scheme in conjunction with the documentation using theQt Assistant is quite fantastic. If you can guess a name for what you are trying to do and type in in the assistant you will most likely find that is the name used by Qt. But at first you need a lightweight introduction and the book is a very nice basic introduction to Qt for someone that seriously wants to or has to work with Qt. You need at least a passing knowledge of object programming to benefit from the book. In that case you will read through this book in a few hours and it fits in your travel pack. It will arm you with a certain overview that is indispensable as you hit Qt hard later on. It does have a couple of appendixes too. One concerns installation. That should be a breeze by now anyway. The other is an introduction to C++ for Java and C# programmers. If you are looking for a much more advanced text, one that you can use to architect that serious application related stuff in depth you should buy "An introduction to design patterns in C++ with Qt 4" by Alan and Paul Ezust along with the book by Blanchette and Summerfield.

This book is the model that all others should emulate. I haven't read every single page of it, nor do I expected to, nor do I expect to _have_ to. Long before I could read every word or try every example, I will _understand_ Qt and will be confident and expert enough to dive into it on my own.

Here's what makes this book amazing: every single example works exactly as printed. Every single example includes a description, and every single description exactly matches and illuminates what the example code is doing. Every single chapter introduces an area of Qt to a sufficient depth to get real, production code up and running (in my case, in XP, Vista64, and MacOS).

Will you still need to read the on-line docs? Sure. And when you do, you'll understand them better because of the introduction the book provided.

I have well over 100 programming books accumulated over a 25 year academic and professional career, and this is among the best in accomplishing what it's supposed to. If you want to learn Qt, get it. 'nuff said.

This book was my first introduction to Qt, and I've been using it for about two weeks now on a project. Other reviewers have argued that it doesn't give enough of a big-picture view. It is true that the book has many pages of annotated source code. I started off thinking the verbosity was daunting, but when I actually tried to start using Qt, I quickly appreciated all the little details in this book and the very complete index (the index is over 50 pages long). The Trolltech website is a good reference for putting everything in one place, but this book is great for stepping through an example in detail.

One caveat: I've used other widget sets (Gtk, Tk) before with other languages, but have no previous experience with Qt, and not much experience with C++ (so I found the "Intro to C++" chapter for Qt programmers a helpful summary).

Trolltech recommends this book as the best way to get started learning QT4. I cannot imagine why. Perhaps they think it is the best of a bad lot.

You don't walk away from this book with any kind of feel for the classes or widgets. No big surprise really, because the book constantly refers you to the APIs.

When it actually endeavours to explain something, the content is usually out of context and based on some class/idea that has not been presented yet (or at all).

Basically, these guys need to collect their thoughts a little bit better and present them more coherently. I also think the book needs a couple hundred more pages to drill down into some of the classes, so that the reader actually gets a feel for them. I don't know why I would want to pay for a book that just refers me to APIs.

I always feel let down when I fork out cash for a dud book. I guess self-education is like any investment; sometimes you just lose on your investment.

If I could sum this book up with one phrase, it would be "information gaps". They are everywhere in this book.

If you have ever had a fragmented conversation with a young child, and you are trying to put it all together as you listen, but their thoughts are just all over the place - then that is kind of like how this book is written.

It's a real pity that there's such a paucity of books on the QT libraries. I recommend jumping straight into the QT documentation. This book adds no value.

Great book, don't be misguided by negative or mixed reviews. I already own a book on Qt 3.0, and approached Qt programming, but never had sufficient time to become proficient in it. Now I have an important project to be developed using Qt and I was looking for an up-to-date book. This book is really great, covers all what you need and in detail. Some reviews lament the fact that the detail is not sufficient, but, in my view, it would be very hard to provide more detail than the book already offers - it really covers all you need to become proficient in Qt. If you are familiar with C++, you will have no problems picking up the subject and the pace will be right for you.

I have been heard about this book for a year. I only had the e-book of Qt 3 version. So, I knew how that book was helpful for a Qt developer.
So, I decided to buy this Qt 4 version. It is really helpful for me and beginner or intermediate Qt developers.