qwtinstall(3)

✨ NAME ✨

qwtinstall — it's giving INSTALL, bestie. This is the qwtinstall(3) page from the Qwt User's Guide, aka the entire "how do I actually get Qwt running on my machine" journey 💅✨

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🫶 Introduction 🫶

okay so Qwt uses qmake to build all its components and examples. and qmake? it's part of a Qt distribution, so it comes with the squad 🫶

qmake reads project files — and those contain the options and rules for how to build a certain project. A project file ends with the suffix *.pro. Files that end with the suffix *.pri get included by the project files, and they hold definitions that are common for several project files. sharing is caring fr fr 💖

qwtconfig.pri is read by all the project files of the Qwt package. so like, the very first step is to edit qwtconfig.pri and adjust it to your needs. that's it, that's the move 👑

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🧚 MathML Extension 🧚

Qwt/Qt4 supports the MathML render engine from the Qt solutions package — and heads up, that one is only available with a commercial Qt license. no free ride on this one 😭

You need a release of qtmmlwidget >= 2.1.

Copy the files qtmmlwidget.[cpp|h] to textengines/mathml. that's the whole vibe 💫

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📚 Documentation 📚

Qwt includes a class documentation that's available in various formats, so pick your fighter:

• Html files
• PDF document
• Qt Compressed Help (*.qch ) for the Qt assistant or creator. You can load it 'Edit Preferences' -> 'Documentation' -> 'Add...' — yes bestie, through the menus, you got this 🎀
• Man pages ( UNIX only ) — hi, you're literally reading one right now 😌

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🌸 A) Unix Qt3/Qt4 🌸

so iconic, so simple:

qmake qwt.pro
make
make install

If you installed a shared library, its path has to be known to the run-time linker of your operating system. On Linux systems, read the LD_LIBRARY_PATH (on some systems LIBPATH is used instead, and on MacOSX it's called DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH) environment variable. yes the names are chaotic, that's just how it is 💀

If you only wanna check the Qwt examples without installing anything, you can set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the lib directory of your local build. peek at the vibes first, commit later 🦋

If you didn't enable autobuilding of the examples in qwtconfig.pri, you have to build the examples this way:

cd examples
qmake examples.pro
make

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💅 B) Win32/MSVC Qt3/Qt4 💅

Please read the qmake documentation on how to convert your *.pro files into your development environment. (iykyk, it's in the docs bestie 📖)

F.e MSVC with nmake:

qmake qwt.pro
nmake
nmake install

If you didn't enable autobuilding of the examples in qwtconfig.pri, you have to build the examples this way:

cd examples
qmake examples.pro
nmake

admin/msvc-qmake.bat helps users of Visual Studio users generate makefiles or project files (.dsp for MSVC-6.0 or vcproj for MSVC.NET) for Qwt. cute little helper script, love that for us 🫶

• To generate makefiles, type: 'adminvc-qmake'
• To generate project files, type: 'adminvc-qmake vc'

When you have built a Qwt DLL you need to add the following define to your compiler flags: QWT_DLL.

⚠️ Windows doesn't like mixing of debug and release binaries. Most of the problems with using the Qwt designer plugin are because of trying to load a Qwt debug library into a designer release executable. don't do it, it will simply not slay 😭

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🌈 C) Win32/MinGW Qt4 🌈

⭐ C1) Windows Shell ⭐

Start a Windows Shell, where Qt4 is initialized. ( F.e. with

qmake qwt.pro
make
make install

If you didn't enable autobuilding of the examples in qwtconfig.pri, you have to build the examples this way:

cd examples
qmake examples.pro
make

⭐ C2) MSYS Shell Qt >= 4.3.0 ⭐

Support for the MSYS Shell has been improved in Qt 4.3.0. Now building Qwt from the MSYS Shell works exactly like in UNIX or in the Windows Shell — or at least it should 💀

because of a bug in Qt 4.3.0 you always have to do a 'qmake -r'. periodt, no notes 🙈

⭐ C3) MSYS Shell Qt < 4.3.0 ⭐

For Qt < 4.3.0 you have to set the MINGW_IN_SHELL variable.

make will run into errors with the subdirs target, and those can be ignored (make -i). fake it till you make it bestie ✨

export MINGW_IN_SHELL=1;

qmake
make -i
make -i install

If you didn't enable autobuilding of the examples in qwtconfig.pri, you have to build the examples this way:

cd examples
qmake examples.pro
make -i

⭐ C1-C3) ⭐

When you have built a Qwt DLL you need to add QWT_DLL to your compiler flags. If you're using qmake for your own builds, this is done by adding the following line to your profile: 'DEFINES += QWT_DLL'.

⚠️ Windows doesn't like mixing of debug and release binaries. Most of the problems with using the Qwt designer plugin are because of trying to load a Qwt debug library into a designer release executable. same warning, same energy, still not the move 😭

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🦋 D) MacOSX 🦋

Well, the Mac is only another Unix system. So read the instructions in A). main character energy, honestly 👑

In the recent Qt4 releases the default target of qmake is to generate XCode project files instead of makefiles. So you might need to do the following:

qmake -spec macx-g++ qwt.pro
...

(the ... is doing a lot of heavy lifting there but we move 💅)

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🍓 E) Qt Embedded 🍓

I only tested Qwt with Qt Embedded in qvfb (Virtual Framebuffer Devivce) Emulator on my Linux box. To build Qwt for the emulator was as simple as for a regular Unix build. lowkey a breeze, no cap 🌸

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💜 F) Symbian 💜

I never tried this platform myself.

Good luck !

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Version 5.2.3 — Tue Nov 20 2012 — and that's the whole qwtinstall(3) page bestie, you ate it up fr fr, go build something iconic 💖✨🎀