Qt 4.8 Beta released

It has been some weeks since we released the Qt 4.8 Technology Preview to the community. The release raised a lot of interest and we have received many comments in response to the Qt 4.8 TP blog.

Today we release the Qt 4.8 Beta. It should be noted it is not yet a final release candidate but it helps us make the quality of the final release even better. It will be available as an online Qt SDK 1.1 update only.

Subsequent Qt 4.8 releases (release candidate and then the final 4.8.0) will be also released through SDK updates.

Qt 4.8 Beta targets

The Qt 4.8 Beta is available in the Qt SDK 1.1 for the following experimental targets: Linux, Windows and Mac. To install the experimental targets, open the Qt SDK’s Maintenance tool in Qt Creator ( Help | Start Updater ) and install them from the “Experimental” category.

Symbian will be added as an experimental target for a later release of Qt 4.8 when it has reached beta readiness, but it will stay experimental until Symbian has adopted Qt 4.8 and final device software is available.

Therefore developers currently aiming to create and deploy apps for Symbian should continue using Qt SDK 1.1 with Qt 4.7.3. We will update the Qt 4.7.3-based target for Symbian before Qt 4.8 target for Symbian can be used for developing applications distributable via Nokia Ovi Store.

Qt 4.8 Beta - content overview

The Qt 4.8 Beta also includes beta maturity implementations of

- Qt Quick 1.1 http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/02/25/import-qtquick-1-1/

- Qt WebKit 2.2

In the Qt 4.8 the focus has been quality and performance improvements, but also other new additional features have been included.

1. Qt Platform Abstraction - to provide a clean abstraction layer for porting QtGui to new window systems. http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/05/31/lighthouse-has-grown-up-now/

2. Threaded Open GL support http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/06/03/threaded-opengl-in-4-8/

3. Multithreaded HTTP

4. Optimized file system access

5. For Symbian especially: Native Symbian networking, Ipv6 and OpenGL Graphics, Symbian resource mgmt.

6. New API's: Localization API and IP multicast API.

As previously mentioned, the Qt 4.8 Beta includes a beta maturity version of Qt Quick 1.1, with the following improvements.

1. Right-To-Left support

2. Improved image caching

3. Text input improvements - Support for split-screen virtual keyboard

4. Pinch Area to provide a declarative API for handling touch input.

Deprecated items list in Qt 4.8

A list of items that will be deprecated in the Qt 4.8 release can be found in http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2011/05/12/qt-modules-maturity-level-the-list/

Big thanks again

Big thanks again to all developers, contributors, documentation team, integration and testing team in Qt releasing plus SDK team to make this beta happen!

We hope that you will start using Qt 4.8 and report the bugs. We are very interested to hear about your experience and improvement ideas to make it even greater for everyone. You can post your bug reports here  http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com.

Best

Eckhart, on behalf of Qt 4.8 program team

UPDATE:

We have now made source packages available for your download needs: .zip and .tar.gz and checksums.txt
If you're interested in further details on the QtWebKit version included in this release look here.

-- Alexandra