The Qt Company introduces Qt 5.6 enabling stable long-term development of advanced applications across desktop, mobile and embedded platforms

Long-Term Supported release adds cross-platform High-DPI functionality, extends to full Windows 10 support, Windows host development for embedded Linux and improved leverage of the Yocto Project

Helsinki – 16 March 2016 – The Qt Company today announced that Qt 5.6, the latest version of its cross-platform application and user interface (UI) development framework, is available for download. Qt enables the rapid creation of high-performance, efficient and beautiful applications that run natively on multiple platform screens, whether desktop, mobile or embedded. Qt 5.6 delivers a significant level of new functionality that will assist both application development and device creation. This includes cross-platform full support for Windows 10, High-DPI capabilities, and fully leveraging the Yocto Project for embedded software stack builds. Qt 5.6 is a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, which means that users can develop with it secure in the knowledge that the version will receive continued support.

Long-Term Support

Being an LTS release, Qt 5.6 provides a solid basis for software projects for years to come. It will receive patch releases containing bug fixes and security updates for at least three years, even after later Qt versions are released. After this time additional extended support can be purchased, if required.

With the LTS, a lot of effort has been put into improving the Qt APIs all-around. For instance, Qt 5.6 introduces improvements to C++11 support, Qt Multimedia, OpenGL ES 3 compatibility and the Chromium-based browser engine, Qt WebEngine, has been updated to a new version, adding support for Pepper plugins (PPAPI) such as Flash.

Application Development

Qt 5.6 enables developers to create applications with one technology in order to reach all the screens of the end users, supporting all major desktop and mobile operating systems including Windows, Linux, OS X, Android, iOS and now, with Qt 5.6, Windows 10 devices.

Qt 5.6 introduces full support for Windows 10 so that applications built with Qt can run on all Windows 10 desktop PCs, tablets and phones, and, of course, be distributed through the Windows Store. With Qt’s cross-platform features, users can take existing Qt-based applications to the new Microsoft platforms and distribute them through Windows Store. In most cases, the migration is just a matter of recompiling the application against the new version of Qt.

Another exciting feature introduced with Qt 5.6 is a completely new cross-platform High-DPI support. This allows even older Qt applications to be easily made to automatically scale from standard resolution displays to high pixel density displays. Qt can automatically adjust font sizes, window elements, icons and other graphics based on the pixel density.

Qt 5.6 also sees the introduction of a Start-up offering that enables small companies (with annual revenues of $100,000 or less) to harness the full power of Qt for Application Development in their products on preferential terms. Visit www.qt.io/start-up-plan for more details.

Device Creation

As the Internet of Things and other embedded applications increasingly demand smooth, high performance UIs and seamless integration with each other and the Cloud, Qt is being widely adopted as the development framework of choice. Qt 5.6 adds the ability to develop embedded Linux devices using a Windows host computer and also integrates seamlessly with the Yocto Project. This means that developers can easily pull in the full Qt offering to their own Yocto-based software stacks or customize Qt’s Yocto-compliant software stack to meet their production needs.

Qt 5.6 also introduces a new version of the Qt Virtual Keyboard, now supporting handwriting recognition, integrating with Nuance T9 Write and adding traditional Chinese as one of the many built-in languages.

To learn more and to download Qt 5.6, please visit: www.qt.io/qt5-6