Qt Designer vs Qt Quick Designer vs Qt Creator?

Question

I have seen references to all three of these applications on various parts of the Qt website but am completely unclear as to the exact differences between them and whether they are actually separate things or just different names for the same thing, or the name changed over time? Or is one no longer supported? What's the deal with these?

Solution 1

Qt Creator is Qt's IDE. You don't have to use it, but it greatly simplifies Qt development.

Qt Designer is a graphical tool that lets you build QWidget GUIs. Qt Quick Designer is similar, but for building QML GUIs. Both are built in to Qt Creator.

This is explained in a little more detail over at Wikipedia.

Solution 2

I will explain to you the difference between these tools by the approach for what they are used:

Qt Designer: Sub tool used to create/edit widget files (.ui). You can use it to create the graphical layouts (.ui files only). The most use is to design the graphical stuff in PyQt apps. It is installed always when you install Qt, for example it is in the path: Qt5.13.1\5.13.1\mingw73_64\bin\designer.exe. It also be used to edit any .ui file of a Qt C++ application, however it is very limited since only allows to edit the graphical stuff (not C++ logic).

Qt Quick Designer (it refers to Qt Creator): It does not exist, it is integrated in Qt Creator (see below). Is normal to say that Qt Quick Designer allows to edit QML files (.qml), however it is integrated in Qt Creator now.

Qt Creator: This is the so defacto and most powerfull IDE to create QT applications natively (C++ with Qt engine). It allows you to create, edit source code, debug applications, etc. In addition to that, yo can open a .ui file or a .qml file in Qt Creator and it will open and allow you to edit. For example if you open an .ui file it will show you the Qt Designer app embedded in the full integrated Qt Creator IDE. In summary, you can use Qt Creator to open/edit any .ui or .qml file and create Qt/C++ applications. Of course, if the file is .ui then Qt Creator will show you the Qt Designer tool, if it is .qml then it will allow you to edit the QML.

Solution 3

Qt Creator is just an IDE used to build QT applications; both Qt Widgets and Qt Quick can be composed. When writing Qt Widgets applications you can edit your GUI in Qt Designer but in case of Qt Quick applications you use Qt Quick Designer, both integrated into Qt Creator.

Also there is this new tool name Qt Design Studio which uses QML too and can integrate with Photoshop.

Comments

[K.Mulier]

How about Qt Design Studio? It also outputs QML. How does it differ from Qt Quick Designer?

[Tim Jenßen]

@K.Mulier QtDesignStudio == (QtCreator - C++) We (I am part of the Qt Design Studio developer team) saw many user interface designers/developers who never would touch QtCreator because it has so many settings and views for C++. So we try to resolve that issue by creating a strip down version of QtCreator and call it Qt Design Studio.

[Kevin Muhuri]

@ Tim Jenßen Qt Designer is the drag and drop for Qt Widgets. Is it still in active development? I'm asking this because of this page which outlines Qt UI tools but I don't see Qt Designer qt.io/design. Qt Design Studio is mostly for the new QML GUIs.

[Cedric H.]

@KevinMuhuri As I understand it, qt designer, being fully built-in and available from within qt creators, it is fading out as a standalone application.

[Kevin Muhuri]

@Cedric H. I asked the same question on Qt forums (forum.qt.io/topic/89085/…) and the moderator (not sure they're a Qt employee) suggested that Qt Designer is in active development as part of Qt Creator.