What's New with Qt for Android

Qt 5.15   LTS and Qt for Android

Since  many developers use Qt for Android , we want to improve the develop er  experience.  With the upcoming   release of  Qt 5.15 .0, we have revamped the documentation for  Android. The new documentation has lots of new content on how to use Qt for Android  maximizing  its full potential.  It  explains in more detail how to extend Qt to support more advanced features and  enhance  integr ation with  Android APIs.   

The main topics that ha ve  been improved  in the documentation include :  

• Extending Qt applications to use custom Java classes or assets and the packaging structure.  
• Dependency version management between the Android Native Development Kit ( NDK )   and Qt.   
• How to work  with Android  s ervices in  a multitude of  different ways.  
• How to b uild   and us e  OpenSSL with Android.  Dependencies between the  OpenSSL repository  supports all Qt versions, both with  QMake  and  CMake .  

In the same context, many Qt examples that had some issues such as layout, scaling, or permissions, has been fixed. Qt 5.15 .0  Qt Android Extras comes with a new  code  example  Qt J ava  N ative  I nterface  Messe n ger (Qt JNI Messenger) . The  example  demonstrates one of the most important topics when using Qt for Android, which is JNI communication. It explains the workflow of invoking methods and exchanging data between Java  and  Qt. The example serves as a starting point for bridging Qt and Android both ways.  

New to Qt for Android? Check out my recent ‘Getting started with Qt for Android’   on-demand webinar  from the  Qt Virtual Tech Con 2020 .   

E nsur ing   proper  integration with Android, the Android native file dialog  can now be used  by default  by  opening file(s) and saving operations. The native file dialog also uses  Android’s   ‘content’ file  scheme and  conducts   additional  exception checks ,  which  in the past has  cause d   some occasional  crashes. The AndroidManifest.xml no longer sets  minSdkVersion  and  targetSdkVersion  values . I nstead,  you can  set   the m  with the  build.gradle  file. Android Studio  will provide a warning  about setting SDK versions in the manifest file. For more information, see the  Manifest documentation .  

For the full list of changes, see  Platform Changes in Qt 5.15.0 .  

Qt Creator 4.12

Some  other changes we have made  include the examples list for Android kits showing examples that are tested and known to work on Android devices. The examples that are not shown by default include those that have unsupported features or modules on Android ,  for example. Also, improvements to the UI design and functionality included the  AVD Manager ,  which got some flexibility for creating AVDs, as well as the  Manifest Editor ’ s  icon selection.  

For the full list of changes, see  Qt Creator 4.12 Android changes .  

Looking Ahead  

To serve Qt mobile users well, we are going to introduce m any more updates  for   supporting  Android.  We will create  more examples, documentation, and functionality ,  paving the way for easy and advanced development  targeted  for Android. Stay tuned for brighter Qt for Android future.  

To access all the new features with Qt for Android, download the latest version via our  downloads page  or update through the maintenance tool.