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QMake plugin

Warning

This plugin is deprecated. You should consider using CMake instead of QMake

The Qmake plugin is a codelite plugin which overrides the default build system of CodeLite, and uses Qt's qmake tool. It does that by producing a .pro file (qmake's project file) from a CodeLite project file (.project) and executing qmake on the generated .pro file Using this plugin, you can quickly create Qt projects using CodeLite

Defining new qmake

  • From the menu bar, open the qmake settings dialog (Plugins → Qmake → Settings ...) , click on the New button, give it a name (e.g. MyQmake) and click OK
  • You should now have a dialog similar to the one below
  • In the qmake executable field, enter the full path to your qmake executable
  • Once the above field is populated properly, you should have a list of options in the QMAKESPEC field. Choose the settings that suit you best (on Windows using MinGW you should choose win32-g++, while on Linux, choose linux-g++).
  • QTDIR should point to your Qt base installation directory

qmake settings

Creating a qmake based project

Once you have set up a qmake setting to work with, you are now ready to create your first qmake based project.

  • Open the New Qmake project dialog from the menu (Plugins → Qmake → New qmake based project)
  • Fill the fields with the appropriate values and click OK
  • You should get an empty workspace with a single project with the name you provided in the previous step
  • Open the project settings (right click on the project icon and select Settings...)
  • In the General page, choose the compiler to use
  • Click OK to dismiss the dialog
  • Right click on the src folder and add a main.cpp file with the following content:
 #include <QString>

 int main(int argc, char **argv)
 {
    QString str;
    str = "Hello world from QT";
    printf("%s\n", str.toLocal8Bit().constData());
    return 0;
 }
  • Right click on the project and select Plugins → Run qmake
  • Click F7 to build as usual

QMake project settings

For many people the above steps are sufficient to work with Qt, but there are cases when you need to add some tweaks to the .pro file. This is done from the project settings: right click on the project, and select settings

The Project Settings dialog pops up, but now it has an additional tab, named Qmake

  • Check the This project uses qmake checkbox to allow the qmake plugin to override the default build system; unchecking it tells CodeLite to use the default build system for the project
  • The qmake execution line is currently not in use, and should be ignored
  • In the free text area, you may add any .pro syntax code that will be appended to the generated .pro file

For example, if you want to build a project without the QtGui module, you need to exclude the gui value with the -= operator; the following line will result in a minimal Qt project being built:

 QT -= gui # Only the core module is used.
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