Qt Terms and Concepts

Here you can find definitions for the terms and concepts used in Qt.

Qt names

Here you can find names of Qt tools and solutions. In documentation, use QDoc macros for them to apply any changes automatically. You can find a list of macros here: QDoc Manual: Product Names

Name	Description	Do not use	QDoc macro	Status
Android Deploy Qt (androiddeployqt)	This tool automates the Qt application deployment on Android.			Approved
Automotive MCU Deployment Platforms	Hardware specific adaptations to allow Qt Quick Ultralite applications to run on target hardware.			Approved
Boot to Qt	A lightweight, Qt-optimized, full software stack for embedded Linux systems. The stack uses the traditional embedded Linux kernel built with Poky, the reference distribution of Yocto Project.		\B2Q (since Qt 6.8)	Approved
Boot to Qt Software Stack	Provides a system image and a toolchain for each target device. The system image contains the Boot to Qt Software Stack, and it needs to be flashed to an SD card or directly to the target device.		\B2QSS (since Qt 6.8)	Approved
Boot to Qt Startup Screen	Startup screen which automatically appears when you have flashed a target device with a Boot to Qt image.		\B2QST (since Qt 6.8)	Approved
D-Bus Viewer	Introspection tool for D-Bus objects and messages.			Approved
In-Vehicle Infotainment Reference UI	A Qt reference UI implementation for In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems.			Approved
makeqpf	A tool to generate pre-rendered fonts for embedded Linux.			Approved
Meta-Object Compiler (moc)	Generates meta-object information for QObject subclasses.			Approved
Non-automotive MCU Deployment Platforms	Hardware-specific adaptations to allow Qt Quick Ultralite applications to run on target hardware.			Approved
On-device Deployment and Debugging	On-device debugging and deployment of Qt applications via Qt Creator.			Approved
Python Shiboken Wizard	A binding generator tool for exposing C++ projects to Python.			Approved
QDB	A tool for controlling Boot2Qt devices.			Approved
qmake	Qt's build automation tool that simplifies the build process across different platforms. Note! Although qmake is still supported, the official build tool for Qt is CMake, and we recommend developers to use CMake in new projects.			Approved
qmlformat	A tool for automatically formatting the QML files in accordance with the QML Coding Conventions.			Approved
qmllint	A tool for verifying the syntax validity of QML files.			Approved
QML Live	Provides a live reloader environment for rapid development of Qt Quick applications, dramatically reducing the time it takes to deploy and test changes in the UI design.			Approved
QML Live Bench	QML Live Bench is the all-inclusive QML live reloading tool that allows you to select a workspace to watch over and provides a Prime QML Live Runtime for the selected QML document.			Approved
QML Live Runtime	The QML Live Runtime tool provides a default runtime with a default QML viewer and listens on a given port for IPC calls from the remote. This tool is ideal for development on a target device when no extra C++ code is required.			Approved
QML Language Server	Helps you edit QML code in your favorite LSP (Language Server Protocol) compatible editor.		\QMLLS	Approved
QML Profiler	Enables you to get the necessary diagnostic information, allowing you to analyze the application code for performance issues.			Approved
QML Runtime	A utility to load and display QML documents.			Approved
Qt Application Manager	Provides a basis for a multi-application embedded system, taking care of application lifecycle management.			Approved
Qt Assistant	A tool for viewing Qt documentation.		\QA	Approved
Qt Bridge	Used for importing 2D assets from design tools into Qt Design Studio.	Qt Design Studio Bridge	\QB	Approved
Qt Bridge for Adobe Photoshop	Used for importing 2D assets from Adobe Photoshop into Qt Design Studio.		\QBPS	Approved
Qt Bridge for Adobe XD	Used for importing 2D assets from Adobe XD into Qt Design Studio.		\QBXD	Approved
Qt Bridge for Figma	Used for importing 2D assets from Figma into Qt Design Studio.		\QBF	Approved
Qt Bridge for Sketch	Used for importing 2D assets from Sketch into Qt Design Studio.		\QBSK	Approved
Qt Configuration Tool (qtconfig-gui)	A tool for providing features and tools for creating and building smaller Qt binaries.			Approved
Qt Creator	A cross-platform, complete integrated development environment (IDE) for application developers to develop applications for multiple desktop, embedded, and mobile device platforms.		\QC (since Qt 6.8)	Approved
Qt D-Bus	Classes for inter-process communication over the D-Bus protocol.			Approved
Qt Designer Qt Widgets Designer (since Qt 6.8)	A tool for designing and building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) using Qt Widgets.		\QD	Approved
Qt Design Studio	A UI design and development environment for creating animated user interfaces.		\QDS	Approved
Qt Design Viewer	Allows users to view and share QML-based UI designs online.		\QDV	Approved
Qt Device Utilities	Provides functionality for controlling various settings in embedded applications.			Approved
Qt Digital Advertising	All-in-one development solution to monetize digital ads on embedded screens/mobile/desktop ads.			Approved
Qt Distance Field Generator	Generates distance fields to improve load times of text-heavy Qt Quick user interfaces.			Approved
QDoc	A tool used by Qt Developers to generate documentation for software projects.			Approved
Qt for Android Automotive	Integrates the Qt Framework, including the UI toolkit, with Android bindings, the Qt IF framework, and the Android Automotive bindings.		\QtAA	Approved
Qt for Android Automotive OS Car Service API	Java bindings for C++ code to interact with the Car API.			Approved
Qt for MCUs	Offers a lightweight graphics framework and toolkit that enables you to design, develop, and deploy graphical user interfaces (GUI) on microcontrollers (MCU).		\QMCU \QtMCU (in Qt for MCUs repo)	Approved
Qt for Python	Offers the official Python bindings for Qt, which enables you to use Python to write your Qt applications.			Approved
Qt for Python commercial add-ons	Machine-to-machine protocols (CoAP, MQTT, OPC UA) for Python developers.			Approved
Qt Insight	Qt Insight is an analytics solution designed to provide real customer insights on the usage of applications or devices. Qt Insights was created especially for companies creating connected embedded products to shed light on an application’s performance, usage, and user data that may not be otherwise attainable.			Approved
Qt Installer Framework	Provides a set of tools and utilities to create installers for the supported desktop platforms.		\IFW (since Qt 6.8)	Approved
Qt Interface Framework	Provides both the tools and the core APIs to implement middleware APIs, middleware back ends, and middleware services.	IVI		Approved
Qt License Service	A part of the Qt License Server that reserves and release licenses for users of Qt and QA products.		\QLS	TBA
Qt License Server	Checks Qt licenses either from a cloud license service hosted by Qt or an on-premises license service hosted by the customer.		\QLSRV	TBA
Qt Linguist	A set of tools for translating Qt C++ and Qt Quick applications into local languages.		\QL	Approved
Qt Maintenance Tool	Once Qt is installed, you can use Qt Maintenance Tool to add components and update or remove installed components.		\QMT	Approved
Qt Multimedia Widgets	Qt Multimedia sub-module, containing widget-based classes for implementing multimedia functionality.			Approved
Qt Online Installer	Enables installing the modules and tools you need to develop on a particular desktop platform and to run your applications on one or several desktop platforms, mobile or embedded devices, or MCUs.		\QOI	Approved
Qt Platform Adaptation Layer	A specific SW architecture between Qt and the underlying OS or HW.			Approved
Qt QML Viewer	A tool for loading QML documents that makes it easy to quickly develop and debug QML applications.		\QQV	Approved
Qt Quick Compiler	Runs QML at a speed close to native with a QML Script and QML type compiler. The former compiles functions and expressions in QML files into C++ classes. The latter compiles QML object structures into C++ classes.			Approved
Qt Quick Compiler Extensions	Decreases the refactoring effort to improve the coverage of compilation. Over time, up to 30% speed-up can be achieved in startup and execution.			Approved
Qt Quick Calendar	The Calendar provides a collection of modular building blocks for creating calendars in Qt Quick.			Approved
Qt Quick TreeView	TreeView provides a QML type to display data from any QAbstractItemModel. It extends TableView with expandable and collapsible nodes, which can be used in either a list or a table model.			Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite	A graphics rendering engine to render QML applications on resource-constrained hardware with low memory requirements.		\QUL	Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Compiler	Compiles QML files and graphical resources into C++ classes optimized for resources-constrained target platforms such as MCUs.	Qt Quick Ultralight Compiler		Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Controls	Provides lightweight UI controls that can be customized to create performant user interfaces for embedded devices.		\QULControls	Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Extras	The Qt Quick Ultralite Extras module provides types useful for extra optimizations of Qt Quick Ultralite applications.		\QULExtras	Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Layers	The Qt Quick Ultralite Layers module provides types to use layers in Qt Quick Ultralite applications.		\QULLayers	Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Profiling	The Qt Quick Ultralite Profiling module provides types useful for displaying performance metrics on top of the application user interface.		\QULProfiling	Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Project Exporter	Exports Qt Quick Ultralite projects to project files for embedded IDEs such as Green Hills MULTI or IAR Embedded Workbench.	Qt Quick Ultralight Project Exporter		Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Shapes	The Qt Quick Ultralite Shapes module provides types to use vector shapes in Qt Quick Ultralite applications.		\QULShapes	Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Studio Components	Qt Quick Ultralite Studio Components is a collection of compatible QML types to Qt Quick Studio Components. Currently, it provides a limited set of QML types.		\QULStudioComponents	Approved
Qt Quick Ultralite Timeline	Qt Quick Ultralite Timeline aims to be compatible with Qt Quick Timeline.		\QULTimeline	Approved
Qt Safe Monitor	A feature of Qt Safe Renderer. A safety-certified (up to ASIL-D) software module that can monitor the safety critical GUI elements at the graphics driver level utilizing the functional safe features of the hardware.			Approved
Qt Safe Renderer	Provides a UI rendering component that can be used to render safety-critical items, such as warning indicators, in functional safety systems.			Approved
Qt UI Viewer	Android version of Qt Design Viewer. Allows users to view and share QML-based UI designs online.		\QUV	Approved
Qt Visual Studio Tools	Integrates the Qt development tools into Microsoft Visual Studio.			Approved
Qt Extension for Visual Studio Code	Integrates the Qt development tools into Visual Studio Code.
Resource Compiler (rcc)	Embeds resources into Qt applications during the build process.			Approved
Simulink support for Qt Design Studio	Use the Simulink connector to connect a simulation to your UI. Simulink is a MATLAB-based graphical programming environment for modeling, simulating, and analyzing multi-domain dynamic systems.			Approved
Tools for Active Qt	Enables Qt integration with the ActiveX components. Includes Interface Description Compiler (IDC), dumpcpp, and dumpdoc tools.			Approved
User Interface Compiler (uic)	Generates C++ code from user interface files.			Approved
Windows Deploy Qt (windowdeployqt)	This tool automates the Qt application deployment on Windows.			Approved

Qt Modules

Qt Essentials

Name	Description	Do not use	QDoc macro	Status
Qt Core	Core non-graphical classes used by other modules.			Approved
Qt D-Bus	Classes for inter-process communication over the D-Bus protocol.			Approved
Qt GUI	Base classes for graphical user interface components. Includes OpenGL.			Approved
Qt Network	Classes to make network programming easier and more portable.			Approved
Qt Qml	Provides a framework for developing applications and libraries with the QML language. It defines and implements the language and engine infrastructure, and provides an API to enable application developers to register custom QML types and modules and integrate QML code with JavaScript and C++.			Approved
Qt Quick	A declarative framework for building highly dynamic applications with custom user interfaces.			Approved
Qt Quick Controls	Provides lightweight QML types for creating performant user interfaces for desktop, embedded, and mobile devices. These types employ a simple styling architecture and are very efficient.			Approved
Qt Quick Dialogs	Types for creating and interacting with system dialogs from a Qt Quick application.			Approved
Qt Quick Layouts	A set of QML types used to arrange items in a user interface.			Approved
Qt Quick Test	A unit test framework for QML applications, where the test cases are written as JavaScript functions.			Approved
Qt Test	Classes for unit testing Qt applications and libraries.			Approved
Qt Widgets	Classes to extend Qt GUI with C++ widgets.			Approved

Qt Add-Ons

Name	Description	Do not use	QDoc macro	Status
Active Qt	Classes for applications that use ActiveX and COM.			Approved
Qt 3D	Functionality for near real-time simulation systems with support for 2D and 3D rendering.			Approved
Qt 5 Core Compatibility APIs	The module contains the Qt Core APIs, which will no longer be supported in Qt 6 and, therefore, were removed from Qt 6.			Approved
Qt Bluetooth	Provides access to Bluetooth hardware.			Approved
Qt Charts	UI Components for displaying visually pleasing charts, driven by static or dynamic data models.			Approved
Qt CoAP	Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a machine-to-machine web transfer protocol for use with constrained nodes and networks in the Internet of Things.			Approved
Qt Concurrent	Classes for writing multi-threaded programs without using low-level threading primitives.			Approved
Qt Data Visualization	UI Components for creating stunning 3D data visualizations.			Approved
Qt Graphs	Provides functionality for visualizing data in 3D as bar, scatter, and surface graphs. (Technical Preview)			Approved
Qt GRPC	Provides an ability to generate Qt-based classes from protobuf specifications used to communicate with gRPC® services. (Technical Preview)			Approved
Qt Help	Classes for integrating documentation into applications, similar to Qt Assistant.			Approved
Qt HTTP Server	A framework for embedding an HTTP server into a Qt application. (Technical Preview)			Approved
Qt Image Formats	Plugins for additional image formats: TIFF, MNG, TGA, WBMP.			Approved
Qt Location	Provides QML and C++ interfaces to create location-aware applications. (Technical Preview)			Approved
Qt Lottie Animation	A QML API for rendering graphics and animations in JSON format, exported by the Bodymovin plugin for Adobe® After Effects.			Approved
Qt MQTT	A machine-to-machine (M2M) protocol that provides a communication channel with minimal overhead.			Approved
Qt Multimedia	Classes for audio, video, and camera functionality.			Approved
Qt NFC	Provides access to Near-Field communication (NFC) hardware.			Approved
Qt Network Authorization	Provides support for OAuth-based authorization to online services.			Approved
Qt OPC UA	A Qt API for interacting with OPC UA, a protocol for data modeling and data exchange in industrial applications.			Approved
Qt OpenGL	OpenGL support classes. Deprecated in favor of the QOpenGL classes in the Qt GUI module.			Approved
Qt Positioning	Provides access to position, satellite, and area monitoring classes.			Approved
Qt Print Support	Classes to make printing easier and more portable.			Approved
Qt Protobuf	Provides an ability to generate Qt-based classes from protobuf specifications. (Technical Preview)			Approved
Qt Quick 3D	Provides a high-level API for creating 3D content or UIs based on Qt Quick.			Approved
Qt Quick 3D Physics	Qt Quick 3D Physics provides a high-level API for physics simulation. It supports simulating interactive rigid bodies as well as static meshes and non-colliding bodies used for detecting overlaps.			Approved
Qt Quick Effect Maker	A standalone tool for creating high-performance shader effects for Qt Quick. Provides both a node and code editor to maximize productivity.		\QQEM (since Qt 6.8)	Approved
Qt Quick Effects	Provides QML types for applying one or more simple graphical effects to Qt Quick items.			Approved
Qt Quick Particles	Provides QML types for particle effects.			Approved
Qt Quick Timeline	Enables keyframe-based animations and parameterization.			Approved
Qt Quick Widgets	Provides a C++ widget class for displaying a Qt Quick user interface.			Approved
Qt Remote Objects	Provides an easy-to-use mechanism for sharing a QObject's API (Properties/Signals/Slots) between processes or devices.			Approved
Qt SCXML	Provides classes and tools for creating state machines from SCXML files and embedding them in applications.			Approved
Qt Sensors	Provides access to sensor hardware and motion gesture recognition.			Approved
Qt Serial Bus	Provides access to the serial industrial bus interface. Currently, the module supports the CAN bus and Modbus protocols.			Approved
Qt Serial Port	Provides access to hardware and virtual serial ports.			Approved
Qt Shader Tools	Tools for the cross-platform Qt shader pipeline that enable processing graphics and compute shaders to make them usable for Qt Quick and other components in the Qt ecosystem.			Approved
Qt Spatial Audio	Provides support for spatial audio. Create sound scenes in 3D space containing different sound sources and room-related properties such as reverb.			Approved
Qt SQL	Classes for database integration using SQL.			Approved
Qt State Machine	Provides classes for creating and executing state graphs.			Approved
Qt SVG	Classes for displaying the contents of SVG files. Supports a subset of the SVG 1.2 Tiny standard.			Approved
Qt TextToSpeech	Qt TextToSpeech enables Qt applications to access accessibility features such as text-to-speech.			Approved
Qt UI Tools	Classes for loading QWidget-based forms created in Qt Designer dynamically, at runtime.			Approved
Qt Virtual Keyboard	A framework for implementing different input methods as well as a QML virtual keyboard. Supports localized keyboard layouts and custom visual themes.			Approved
Qt Wayland Compositor	Provides a framework to develop a Wayland compositor.			Approved
Qt WebChannel	Provides access to QObject or QML objects from HTML clients for seamless integration of Qt applications with HTML/JavaScript clients.			Approved
Qt WebSockets	Provides WebSocket communication compliant with RFC 6455.			Approved
Qt WebView	Displays web content in a QML application by using APIs native to the platform, without the need to include a full web browser stack.			Approved
Qt XML	C++ implementations of SAX and DOM.			Approved

Qt Extension Modules

Name	Description	Do not use	QDoc macro	Status
Qt PDF	Displays PDF documents. Allows showing product documentation within the application.			Approved
Qt WebEngine	Classes and functions for embedding web content in applications using the Chromium browser project.			Approved

Qt Quality Assurance tools

Name	Description	Do not use	QDoc macro	Status
Axivion Architecture Verification C/C++	Automated architecture verification checks if the implementation of your C/C++ system and its software architecture match.			Approved
Axivion Static Code Analysis C/C++	Fully customizable static code analysis that checks your C/C++ software for style violations and defects.			Approved
Axivion Static Code Analysis Professional C/C++	In addition to the coding guideline checks of the Axivion Static Code Analysis C/C++, this product includes Clone Detection and Management, Cycle Detection, Dead Code Detection and Metrics Monitoring.			Approved
Axivion Suite C/C++	The Axivion Suite C/C++ gives you the full range of Axivion analysis tools for C/C++ in one box. The Axivion Suite C/C++ includes static code analysis, architecture analysis and verification as well as effective tools for the detection of code smells.			Approved
Axivion Suite C#	The Axivion Suite C# gives you all the features of the Axivion analysis tools that are available for C# in one box. The Axivion Suite C# includes architecture analysis and verification as well as effective tools for the detection of code smells.			Approved
Coco	Coco is a multi-language, multi-platform code coverage analysis and profiling tool.		\COCO	Approved
Squish	Squish is a tool for functional GUI test automation. From within a powerful Squish, users can record, author, debug, and execute scripted or Behavior-Driven Developed test cases for their desktop, mobile, web, or embedded GUI and HMI.		\SQUISH	Approved
Test Center	Test Center is a centralized test result management platform that organizes, aggregates and monitors your software test results as your application evolves. Web-based, lightweight, and easily accessed from any browser, Test Center quickly provides application health insights at-a-glance and for the whole team in a cross-collaborative way.		\TC	Approved

Qt licensing terms

Name	Description	Do not use	QDoc macro	Status
Qt Commercial License Agreement	The latest version of the Qt Commercial License Agreement (Qt LA) is Frame Agreement 2024-02.			Approved
Qt for Application Development	Qt for Application Development (AD) is the product used for creating applications that will run exclusively on desktop and mobile operating systems as one of many applications (such as email, browser, games, office apps, etc.).			Approved
Qt for Application Development Enterprise	The Qt for Application Development Enterprise (ADE) edition is suitable for organizations looking for a more comprehensive feature set for developing applications, additional value-added services, or full technical support.			Approved
Qt for Application Development Professional	The Qt for Application Development Professional (ADP) edition is suitable for individuals and organizations looking for key functionalities for application development and installation support for Qt tools.			Approved
Qt for Device Creation	The Qt for Device Creation (DC) editions include additional features, capabilities, and the rights to create hardware devices, in addition to all the rights and features of the Qt for Application Development Enterprise edition. Qt for Device Creation must be licensed when an individual or organization is building a device that incorporates or integrates parts of the Qt software libraries or where the main functionality of the device depends on Qt’s software libraries regardless of whether Qt’s assets are distributed.			Approved
Qt for Device Creation Enterprise	The Qt for Device Creation Enterprise (DCE) edition is suitable for organizations seeking a more comprehensive feature set for creating devices.			Approved
Qt for Device Creation Professional	The Qt for Device Creation Professional (DCP) edition is suitable for individuals and organizations looking for a foundation of key functionalities for creating devices.			Approved

Terms under work

You can give feedback on the terms here. Please remember to include your name in the Reviewer column so that we can contact you if needed.

You can comment, for example, on the following:

• Missing/outdated Qt-specific term
• Inaccurate/outdated description
• Missing QDoc macro

Name	Feedback	Reviewer	Outcome
Module	This term is very overloaded: Qt module, QML module, git (sub)module	Sze Howe Koh	This is true. All of these are established names though, so we don't think we can change these. The most imporant part is therefore using the names as you have given, instead of just refering to a 'module'. Kkoehne (talk)
Qt UI Viewer	It is Android-specific, but its name is too generic. There are also references to Qt UI Viewer Android, DV Android, Android Design Viewer, and Android UI Viewer. We need a consistent and specific name.	Sze Howe Koh	Qt UI Viewer is currently only available on Android, but we'll tackle iOS next, and the idea is to make it also available on other platforms. The other names are legacy.
Declarative UI package	This term is used to describe "Qt QML Viewer" above. What is it? I've never heard of it.	Sze Howe Koh	Good question! We had a chat about these comments in the Documentation workshop earlier this week, and none of us was familiar with "Declarative UI package". Thus it has now been removed from the description of "Qt QML Viewer".
QML	is a user interface specification and programming language.	Kkoehne
Qt Quick