Talk presented at Akademy 2017 - Almería - Spain

1. sandroandrade@kde.org
@andradesandro
Sandro Andrade
Architecting Qt Mobile Applications
Frameworks, Code Generators and Beyond
Akademy 2017

2. whoami
whoami

3. whoami
whoami

4. What is this talk about?

5. What is this talk about?

6. What is this talk about?
●
Qt offers a stable UI framework for cross-
platform mobile applications development
●
Large and complex Qt mobile applications
still lack some architectural-level support
●
A lot of functionalities are recurrent and
amenable to automatic code generation

7. What is this talk about?
●
Some Qt disabilities in mobile development:
– Lack of high-level frameworks delivering
modular and reusable architectural solutions for
mobile apps
– KDE Frameworks 5 is likely to be cumbersome
and/or introduce unwanted dependencies
– Lack of high-level reusable UI components (KDE
Kirigami to the rescue)

8. What is this talk about?
●
Some Qt disabilities in mobile development:
– No built-in support for JSON-based RESTful
communication (lack of a JSONListModel)
– No built-in support for disconnected operations
(with automatic sync upon reconnected)
– No built-in cross-platform support for receiving
push notifications
– Issues with deployment of read-write files across
platforms

9. What is this talk about?
●
We’ve been working on some mobile Qt
development projects at IFBA over the last
1.5 years
●
Such Qt disabilities has motivated us to
investigate to which extent such problems
can be alleviated with the use of well-
thought architectures and effective tooling

10. Introducing Meg
=
+
Meg
A lean dynamic QML-based
architecture for Qt
cross-platform mobile
applications
A code generator which
Enables the productive
creation of modular
RESTful servers and
Qt mobile applications

11. Introducing Meg
●
Implemented as a Ruby Thor-based CLI
●
Templates are specified in Embedded RuBy
(ERB)
●
Generators are modular (Thor with modules)
●
Provides a JSONListModel QML object
●
Automatic download of Google Material Icons

12. Introducing Meg
●
Currently available templates:
●
Sinatra RESTful server with modular architecture
(sinatra-server)
●
Ruby Sinatra RESTful service plug-in (sinatra-service-
plugin)
●
Simple Qt mobile app with plugin-based architecture
(simple-app)
●
Qt mobile RESTful app with plugin-based architecture
(restful-app)
●
Qt mobile RESTful client plug-in (restful-client-plugin)

13. Meg – quick demo
●
Installing meg:
– git clone https://github.com/sandroandrade/meg.git
– install ruby
– run ‘gem install bundler’
– Run ‘bundle install’
– CLI is in ‘./bin/meg’

14. Meg – quick demo
●
Creating a simple Qt plugin-based mobile
app:
– ./bin/meg new SimpleApp -t simple-app
●
Creating some plug-ins:
– ./bin/meg generate plugin students -t basic-plugin -a
simpleapp/
– ./bin/meg generate plugin teachers -t basic-plugin -a
simpleapp/

15. Meg – quick demo
●
Creating a modular Sinatra RESTful server:
– ./bin/meg new myserver -t sinatra-server
●
Creating some plug-ins:
– ./bin/meg generate plugin Conference -t sinatra-service-
plugin -a myserver/ acronym:string name:string
city:string country:string venue:string start_date:datetime
end_date:datetime
– ./bin/meg generate plugin Speaker -t sinatra-service-
plugin -a myserver/ name:string affiliation:string
shortbio:string

16. Meg – quick demo
●
Running the server:
– run ‘rake db:migrate’
– populate database with some data
– start the server: ‘ruby myserver.rb’
●
Checking the services:
– curl http://localhost:4567/conferences | python -m
json.tool
– curl http://localhost:4567/speakers | python -m json.tool

17. Meg – quick demo
●
Creating a mobile Qt RESTful client:
– ./bin/meg new MyApp -t restful-app
●
Creating the RESTful client plug-ins:
– ./bin/meg generate plugin conferences -t restful-client-
plugin -a myapp -i name -c action/ic_speaker_notes
acronym:string name:string city:string venue:string
start_date:datetime end_date:datetime
– ./bin/meg generate plugin speakers -t restful-client-plugin
-a myapp -i name -c action/ic_record_voice_over
name:string affiliation:string shortbio:string

18. Meg – quick demo
●
Qt RESTful client:

19. Meg – quick demo
●
Future work:
– Add templates for full CRUD support
– Add template for kirigami-based UI
workflows
– Support relationships between models
– Support push notification
●
Try it! Contributions welcome!

20. Questions?