Qt 3.1 introduces many significant new features and many improvements

over the 3.0.x series. This file provides an overview of the main

changes since version 3.0.x. For further details see the online

documentation which is included in this distribution, and also

available at http://qt.nokia.com/doc/.

The Qt version 3.1 series is binary compatible with the 3.0.x series:

applications compiled for 3.0 will continue to run with 3.1.

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*                                 General                                  *

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Qt Script for Applications

--------------------------

Qt 3.1 is the first Qt release that can be used with Qt Script for

Applications (QSA). QSA provides a scripting engine, an IDE for

creating and editing scripts and script forms, and bindings to the Qt

API. Script-enabling a Qt application is not difficult and the IDE

makes it easy for resellers and end-users to write their own scripts.

QSA is due for release after Qt 3.1.

Qt Designer

-----------

Qt Designer, the visual GUI builder, has undergone several usability

improvements. A new dialog for creating and editing signals and slots

connections has been created: it is much easier to use and much faster

for setting up multiple connections. The widgets are now presented in

an easy-to-use toolbox rather than in toolbars (although you can still

have the toolbars if you want). The property editor now handles common

properties in multiple widgets simultaneously. By popular demand,

WYSIWYG support for QWidgetStack has been added. Rich text is now

supported with a rich text editor. And the code editor can be used for

ordinary member functions as well as for slots.

Qt Assistant

------------

Qt Assistant, the Qt documentation browser, can now be used with

custom documentation sets. This new functionality combined with the

new QAssistantClient class means that you can use Qt Assistant as a

help browser for your own applications. Qt Assistant has also been

enhanced by the addition of a fast full text search engine.

Motif

-----

The general industry-wide move away from Motif is leaving more and

more companies in need of a migration solution. But converting large

legacy applications in one step is often impractical. To minimize

risks and to manage the workload companies often want to port code on

a module by module basis. Qt 3.1 includeds a completely new Motif

module that supports hybrid applications in which Qt code and Motif

code coexist. (This obsoletes the earlier rudimentary Qt Xt/Motif

extension.)

ActiveX

-------

With the release of Qt 3.1, customers who use Qt for Microsoft Windows

development can now use Qt with ActiveX. The new ActiveQt module

provides a simple API for COM and ActiveX. The module can be used to

create applications which host ActiveX controls, and also to create

applications that serve ActiveX controls (e.g. Internet Explorer

plugins).

Qt/Mac

------

The introduction of Qt/Mac, a Mac OS X port of Qt, with Qt 3.0 has

proved a great success. This port has undergone many improvements in

Qt 3.1, especially with respect to Appearance Manager, anti-aliased

text and user settings. The Qt OpenGL support is greatly improved, and

uses the hardware-accelerated drivers.

Qt/Embedded

-----------

Graphics, mouse and keyboard drivers can now be compiled as plugins.

Qt library

----------

In addition to the new additions and enhancements referred to above,

as with all major Qt releases, Qt 3.1 includes hundreds of

improvements in the existing class library. Here is a brief summary of

the most significant changes:

- QTextEdit has a new text format: LogText. This is a performance and

  memory optimized format especially designed for the fast display of

  large amounts of text. The format supports basic highlighting,

  including bold and colored text.

- The new QSyntaxHighlighter class makes it both easy and efficient to

  add syntax highlighting capabilities to a QTextEdit.

- QHttp and QFtp in earlier Qt's were implementations of the

  QNetworkProtocol. Both have been extended to stand in their own

  right. If you missed some flexibility in the network protocol

  abstractions of earlier Qt's, the new QHttp and QFtp classes should

  provide the solution.

- QAccel, used to handle keyboard shortcuts, now gracefully copes with

  shortcut clashes. If a clash occurs, a new signal,

  activatedAmbiguously(), is emitted. Classes that use QAccel, like

  QButton's subclasses and QPopupMenu, make use of this new

  functionality. Futhermore QAccel can now handle multi-key sequences,

  for example, Ctrl+X,Ctrl+F.

- QClipboard has been extended to simplify data exchange between

  programs.

- Thread support: almost all methods in the tools classes have been

  made reentrant. QApplication::postEvent() and a few other methods

  are now thread-safe if Qt is compiled as a multi-threaded library.

  (The documentation now states if a class or function is thread-safe

  or reentrant.)

- A QMutexLocker class has been added to simplify the locking and

  unlocking of mutexes.

- Input methods: A selectionLength() function has been added to

  QIMEvent. Japanese compositions are now handled correctly. Support

  for AIMM based input methods (those working on non-Asian versions of

  Win95/98/Me) has been added.

- Large File support: Qt's internals have been modified to support

  Large Files (> 2GB). QFileDialog will now correctly display and

  select large files.

- SQL module: Support for prepared query execution and value binding

  has been added. Among other benefits, this makes it possible to

  write large BLOBs (> 2 KB) to Oracle databases, and to write Unicode

  strings to SQL Server databases.

- Support for XIM on Solaris.

Build process

-------------

The build process has been improved:

- The configure script does not need QTDIR to be set anymore.

- Improved support for building Qt on MSVC.NET.

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*			   Library					   *

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- QAccel:

	Corrected illegal accelerator state when using multiple

	keysequences. (Resulted in no accelerator being triggered when

	there's a partial match). Only triggers on enabled

	accelerators and their enabled items. Eats all keys in a

	keysequence, not just the first and last.

- QCString:

	Speed-optimized replace().

- QDataStream:

	Applies to printable data streams only: If the version number

	of the device is less than 4, use the same streaming format

	that was used in Qt 2.3 and earlier.

- QDataTable:

	Respect read-only columns. Make it possible to swap columns.

- QDockWindow:

	Added a standard widget constructor (taking a QWidget *parent,

	const char *name and WFlags). Improved docking behavior.

- QFileDialog:

	Windows only: make Qt's filedialog work properly with network

	paths.

- QFontMetrics:

	Windows only: Fixed QFontMetrics::boundingRect( QChar c ) to

	work for non-TrueType fonts.

- QHeader:

	Optimized the sectionSizeHint() calculation, which in turn 

	speeds up all QHeader size/label calculations.

- QIconFactory:

	Avoid infinite loops when recursively calling

	QPixmap::pixmap().

- QIconView:

	Fixed navigation and selection with arrow keys. Some speedups

	when repainting.

- QKeySequence:

	Treat Unicode characters in string defined sequences

	correctly. So, now letters like Æ, Ø and Å should work as

	accelerators, even through translation files.

- QLayout:

	alignmentRect() respects the layout's maximum size.

- QLineEdit:

	Added a lostFocus() signal. Double-clicking only uses spaces

	as word bounderies for the selection now, not dots, commas,

	etc. Support double-click+mousemove selection.

- QListBox:

	Fixed the item which is passed into the contextMenuRequested()

	signal (this was sometimes wrong). Don't select items that are

	not selectable.

- QListView:

	Shift selection in Extended mode now follows Windows

	Shift-selection standard. Erase empty area when drawing

	listviews without columns. Only drops on drop-enabled items

	that accept drops.

- QListViewItem:

	Optimized size claculation for multi-line items.

- QMainWindow:

	Base the minimumSizeHint() on the sizeHint()s of the left hand

	dock area (instead of the minimumSize()).

- QMenuBar:

	Fixed broken Alt release detection. Fixed flickering. Fixed

	empty menubars resizing properly.

- QObject:

	Fixed return value of disconnect(). Fixed disconnect()ing

	SIGNALs from SIGNALs and disconnect()ing multiple SLOTs with

	the same name from a SIGNAL.

- QProcess:

	Unix only: Don't eat the file descriptors if a lot of

	processes (with short runtimes) are started immediately after

	each other.

- QPSQLDriver:

	Make the driver compile with the standard PostgreSQL source

	distribution under Windows. Better handling of network,

	datetime and geometrical datatypes.

- QRegion:

	Fixed setRects() to calculate the bounding rectangle

	correctly.

- QScrollView:

	Doesn't reposition the view when the user is scrolling the

	view.

- QSpinBox:

	Fixed setValue() so that any not-yet-interpreted input is

	ignored when setting a new value.

- QString:

	Support QTextCodec::codecForCStrings(). Support

	std::string<==>QString conversion when STL support is on.

- QSyntaxHighlighter:

	Added function rehighlight(). Improved internals to be more

	efficient (less calls to highlightParagraph() necessary).

- QTable:

	Fixed Tab/BackTab handling to always work. Fixed

	setColumnLabels() and setRowLabels().

- QTableItem (and subclasses):

	Now supports global struts. (See QApplication::globalStrut().)

- QTDSDriver:

	Added support for binary datatypes.

- QTextCodec:

	Added QTextCodec::codecForCStrings and QTextCodec::codecForTr.

- QTextEdit:

	Fixed a painting error which resulted in areas of the textedit

	not being erased correctly. Make sure repainting is done after

	changing the underline-links setting. Renamed 'allowTabs'

	property to 'tabChangesFocus' (inverted value). Added a new

	property 'autoFormatting'. When exporting HTML also quote

	quotes. Fixed a background erasing bug which messed up the

	view.

- QUrl:

	Recognize Windows drive letters not only in the form of "c:/"

	but also in the form "c:" (without the '/').

- QWidget:

	Fixed some visibility issues.

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*			   Qt Designer					   *

****************************************************************************

- Now displays the classname of "gray box" custom widgets in the gray

  box on the form.

- Accept tildes (~) in the project settings.

- A new command line tool conv2ui (in qt/tools/designer/tools) has

  been added, to convert dialog description files from different file

  formats to .ui files without the need to invoke Qt Designer. This

  tool uses the same plugins as Qt Designer for loading other dialog

  description files.

- An import filter for .kdevdlg files has been added.

- Actions in the action editor are now sortable.

- Improved usability of more dialogs (in-place renaming, drag'n'drop,

  etc.)

- Preserve creation order of forward declarations, variables, etc.

- Save comments for actions.

- uic: Fixed generating code for QStringList properties.

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*			   Qt Assistant					   *

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- Fixed some accelerator conflicts.

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*			   Qt Linguist					   *

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- Handle trailing backslash in strings correctly in lupdate.

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