Qt 5.1 on the Playbook - preet/scratch GitHub Wiki

This is a set of notes for building and deploying Qt 5.1 for the Playbook on a Linux machine. As of this writing, Qt 5.1 is in alpha. It is assumed that the BlackBerry Playbook OS NDK (currently at v2.1) is installed, and that the NDK environment is used while building:

$ source /where/you/installed/the/ndk/bbndk-env.sh

For building and deploying applications, QtCreator 2.7 is used.

More generic instructions are available on the Qt website:

Building Qt5 for the Playbook

Building and Deploying Qt Apps to the Playbook

Building

  • Grab the Qt 5.1 Source
  • Extract it somewhere and cd into it from a terminal with the bbndk environment
  • Do not do a top level configure, instead build and make qtbase first
$ cd qtbase
$ source /where/you/installed/the/ndk/bbndk-env.sh
$ ./configure -prefix /where/you/want/to/install/qt5 -device blackberry-playbook-armv7le -opengl es2 -nomake docs -nomake examples -nomake demos -nomake tests -no-xmlpatterns -no-webkit -opensource -confirm-license -release -no-neon -no-c++11
$ make && make install

  • Now you need to build some additional qt5 modules:

  • qtimageformats

  • qtjsbackend

  • qtxmlpatterns (must re-configure/build qtbase without -no-xmlpatterns)

  • qtdeclarative (this is QtQuick 2)

  • qtgraphicaleffects

  • qtsensors [optional]

  • qtmultimedia [optional]

  • qtscript [optional for QtQuick 1]

  • qtquick1 [optional for legacy QtQuick 1]

  • Export the path to the new qtbase install you just made, then cd into any modules you want and build and install them

$ export PATH=/where/you/installed/qt5/bin:$PATH
$ qmake && make && make install

Adding Kit to QtCreator 2.7

  • Open up QtCreator
  • Tools > Options
  • Build and Run Section
  • Qt Versions Tab
  • Click Add...
    • Locate the qmake you just built
    • Version name: something like "Qt 5.1 Alpha - Playbook Device"
    • BlackBerry Native SDK: "/where/you/installed/BBNDK"
    • If you get a warning/error similar to 'no suitable compiler found':
    • -> Go to the Compilers Tab
    • -> Add a Compiler
    • -> Path: <path_to_ndk>/host///usr/bin/qcc.
    • -> ABI: custom-arm-generic-elf-32bit
    • -> Name it something like Playbook GCC
    • -> In Kits (described next), you will have to specify this compiler
  • Kits Tab
  • Click Add...
    • Name: something like "Playbook Device (Qt 5.1 Alpha)"
    • Device type: BlackBerry Device
    • Device: BlackBerry Device
    • Compiler: Playbook GCC (if you need to specify it)
    • Debugger: "/where/you/installed/BBNDK/host/linux/x86/usr/bin/ntoarm-gdb"
    • Qt version: What you created earlier in Qt Versions (Qt 5.1 Alpha - Playbook Device)
    • Qt mkspec: (empty)
  • Click Apply, exit with OK

QtCreator Project / Build Generation

  • See the following sample project file and bar file. Note that there are slight differences compared to the documentation at Qt-project due to some name changes in Qt 5.1.

  • pro file:

  • The nativepackager will error out if there are any path errors so make sure everything is correct.

      QT += quick
  
  HEADERS += main.cpp
  
  OTHER_FILES += \
      main.qml
  
  qnx {
      QMAKE_LFLAGS += '-Wl,-rpath,\'./app/native/lib\''
  
      PACKAGE_ARGS = \
          $${PWD}/bar-descriptor.xml $$TARGET \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5Core.so.5 lib/libQt5Core.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5Gui.so.5 lib/libQt5Gui.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5OpenGL.so.5 lib/libQt5OpenGL.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5Network.so.5 lib/libQt5Network.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5Widgets.so.5 lib/libQt5Widgets.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5Quick.so.5 lib/libQt5Quick.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5Qml.so.5 lib/libQt5Qml.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5Sql.so.5 lib/libQt5Sql.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5V8.so.5 lib/libQt5V8.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_LIBS]/libQt5XmlPatterns.so.5 lib/libQt5XmlPatterns.so.5 \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_PLUGINS]/platforms/libqqnx.so plugins/platforms/libqqnx.so \
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_QML]/ qml/
          -e $$[QT_INSTALL_IMPORTS]/ imports/   # only if you built/use the qtquick1 modules
  
      package.target = $${TARGET}.bar
      package.depends = $$TARGET
      package.commands = blackberry-nativepackager \
          -package $${TARGET}.bar \
          -devMode -debugToken /path/to/debugtoken.bar \
          $${PACKAGE_ARGS}
  
      QMAKE_EXTRA_TARGETS += package
  
      OTHER_FILES += bar-descriptor.xml
  }

  • bar file:

  • Note the QML_FIXED_ANIMATION_STEP and QML_FORCE_THREADED_RENDER environment variables. You may see slow performance for OpenGL / QtQuick applications on the device. Play with these variables to hopefully increase performance. Setting both to ON and 1 respectively improved performance for me.

  • The above is probably related to a bug which may or may not be fixed for the Playbook QTBUG-28487

      <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' standalone='no'?>
  <qnx xmlns="http://www.qnx.com/schemas/application/1.0">
      <id>com.example.textureinsgnode</id>
      <name>textureinsgnode</name>
      <versionNumber>1.0.0</versionNumber>
      <description>DESCRIPTION</description>
      <initialWindow>
          <aspectRatio>landscape</aspectRatio>
          <autoOrients>false</autoOrients>
          <systemChrome>none</systemChrome>
          <transparent>false</transparent>
      </initialWindow>
      <author>Individual</author>
      <copyright>COPYRIGHT</copyright>
      <env var="QML2_IMPORT_PATH" value="app/native/qml"/>
      <env var="QT_PLUGIN_PATH" value="app/native/plugins"/>
      <env var="LD_LIBRARY_PATH" value="app/native/lib"/>
      <env var="QML_FIXED_ANIMATION_STEP" value="no"/>
      <env var="QML_FORCE_THREADED_RENDER" value="1"/>
      <!-- <arg>-style</arg> -->
      <!-- <arg>qnxlight</arg> -->
      <action system="true">run_native</action>
      <!-- textureinsgnode should point to the project binary, path can be relative -->
      <asset entry="true" type="Qnx/Elf" path="textureinsgnode">textureinsgnode</asset>
      <asset path="%QT_INSTALL_LIBS%">lib</asset>
      <asset path="%QT_INSTALL_PLUGINS%">plugins</asset>
      <asset path="%QT_INSTALL_QML%">imports</asset>
      <!-- These values will be replaced when deploying in Qt Creator -->
      <authorId>gYAAgOTuT0B9ytlqvWI4hESaSfo</authorId>
  </qnx>

Deploying

  • Build your project with QtCreator
  • In the build directory, call

$ make targetname.bar

  • Now you have a *.bar package you can deploy to the device.

Blackberry NDK Commands

  • Install to device

$ blackberry-deploy -installApp -device 192.168.2.10 -password mypass myapp.bar

  • Get stdout log from device

$ blackberry-deploy -getfile logs/log stdout.log -device 192.168.x.x -password mypass myapp.bar

  • Get core dump from device

$ blackberry-deploy -getfile logs/myapp.core myapp.core -device 192.168.x.x -password mypass myapp.bar

Debug Token

  • Just written here for convenience
  • Creating the Debug Token

$ blackberry-debugtokenrequest -storepass bbpassword -devicepin AAAAAAAA debugtoken.bar

  • Installing the Debug Token

$ blackberry-nativepackager -installDebugToken debugtoken.bar -device 192.168.x.x -password devicepass

Notes

  • If anything goes really slow on the device, its likely that the application and/or its libs have been built in debug mode; ensure everything is in release when testing performance.

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