Setting up
In addition to Rust’s own build tools, you’ll need to set up a C++ compiler, Qt, and CMake.
C++ compiler
On Linux, install gcc from the repository.
On Windows, install Visual Studio (e.g. Visual Studio Community 2017). Make sure to enable the component for C++ application development when installing Visual Studio.
Visual Studio will create a starting menu option (e.g. x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2017) for starting command prompt with environment variables set up. You need to use it for all build operations, so that VS compiler and linker are available.
On macOS, install Xcode Command Line Tools. The install can be initiated with the xcode-select --install command. You don’t need a full Xcode installation.
Qt
You can install Qt on any OS using the official installer. The installer allows you to select one of multiple available versions and builds. Make sure to select a Desktop build, not a mobile OS build. On Windows, also make sure to select a build corresponding to your Visual Studio version (e.g. MSVC 2017), not a MinGW build. Select a 64-bit version, not a 32-bit version.
On Linux and macOS, you can also install Qt development packages from the repository (or brew).
If Qt is not installed system-wide, you need to set up PATH to point at the directory where qmake executable is stored. You may also need to set up variables that allow the dynamic linker to find Qt libraries at runtime:
On Linux:
export PATH="~/Qt/5.14.0/gcc_64/bin:$PATH"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="~/Qt/5.14.0/gcc_64/lib:$PATH"
On macOS:
export PATH="~/Qt/5.14.0/gcc_64/bin:$PATH"
# If Qt is build as libraries:
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/Qt/5.14.0/clang_64/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
# If Qt is build as frameworks:
export DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH=~/Qt/5.14.0/clang_64/lib:$DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH
On Windows (in the VS command prompt):
set PATH=C:\Qt\5.13.0\msvc2017_64\bin;%PATH%
CMake
You’ll also need cmake. On Linux and macOS, install it from the repository (or brew).
On Windows, download the CMake installer at the official site. During installation, choose to add cmake to the system PATH. You’ll need to reopen command prompt or log out to apply the changes. Alternatively, add its installation directory to PATH in your prompt.
Run cmake --version to verify that cmake is available.
Verifying installation
To check that everything is set up correctly, try to build a C++/Qt project in your environment. If you’ve installed Qt via the official installer, it will store examples in the Examples directory of your Qt installation. You can also find them in the Qt git repository.
On Linux:
cd /tmp
mkdir build
cd build
qmake ~/Qt/Examples/Qt-5.13.0/widgets/dialogs/standarddialogs
make
./standarddialogs
On macOS:
cd /tmp
mkdir build
cd build
qmake ~/Qt/Examples/Qt-5.13.0/widgets/dialogs/standarddialogs
make
open standarddialogs.app
On Windows (in the VS command prompt):
cd C:\tmp
mkdir build
cd build
qmake C:\Qt\Examples\Qt-5.13.0\widgets\dialogs\standarddialogs
nmake
release\standarddialogs.exe
Finally, you can try to build the provided examples:
git clone https://github.com/rust-qt/examples
cd examples
cargo run --bin basic_form
If you use MSYS2 and you get the following error: “The procedure entry point inflateValidate could not be located in the dynamic link library C:\msys64\mingw64\bin\libpng16-16.dll”, it’s usually caused by some other zlib1.dll on your PATH. You can verify this from MSYS2 shell using the following commmand:
which zlib1.dll
To fix this, you either need to fix your PATH or copy zlib1.dll from your C:\msys64\mingw64\bin directory to your target\debug and target\release directories.