Qt for WinRT allows you to run Qt applications on devices supporting the Windows Store App APIs. This includes Modern UI applications in Windows 8.1 and up, as well as devices running the Windows RT and Windows Phone 8.

Microsoft introduced a new design paradigm with the Windows 8 Modern UI. A core part of this new approach is Windows Runtime (WinRT) that supports development using different programming languages, such as C++/CX (component extensions), C# VB.NET, or JavaScript. The Qt port uses the C++ capabilities. While WinRT supports the component extensions internally, they are not used inside Qt and you do not need to use them. WinRT applications run in a sandboxed environment for security reasons and support different architectures, such as ARM and x86.

Requirements

Development for Windows Runtime requires a Microsoft Windows development host. The minimum version supported is Windows 8.1.

Depending on your device target you will need the following tools provided by Microsoft to be installed:

If you are targeting a remote device, please follow all instructions by Visual Studio to set it up correctly.

Getting Started

Building Applications

You can develop applications for WinRT just as any other Qt applications. Use your favorite editor or IDE (such as Qt Creator) and create your application or load a Qt example. Then run qmake and nmake/jom to build your application.

Building Applications with Visual Studio

To launch your project with Visual Studio a corresponding project needs to be created. qmake supports converting a .pro project into Visual Studio format by passing the parameters -tp vc.

qmake -tp vc <your project>.pro

Be aware of using the correct match of qmake and Visual Studio. As the Visual Studio format is generic, it does not return an immediate error if for instance you open a Windows Phone project inside Visual Studio for Windows.

This creates a project which supports building applications and running them with Visual Studio. It does not embed Qt libraries into the package and requires you to add them manually. For this purpose, the command line tool windeployqt has been included in the installed package. To enable automatic parsing of dependencies and adding the libraries and dependencies into the application package, create the project with the following options:

qmake -tp vc <your project>.pro "CONFIG+=windeployqt"

Building Applications with Qt Creator

You will not need to do any conversion to open your project in Qt Creator. Please follow the generic instructions on how to open and build a project.

Qt Creator deploys your application on the WinRT device, if the device is detected by the PC.

Note: Remote PCs, such as the Surface, are not yet supported for deployment by Creator.

Building from Source

We assume that you have cloned the Qt 5 repositories (or obtained the Qt sources elsewhere) and followed the platform-independent requirements for building Qt. The process of building Qt is found in the Building Qt Sources page.

Qt for WinRT is always built as a cross-build, because tools, such as qmake, are built as desktop applications. For compiling those, a desktop development environment is required. If you have installed Visual Studio 2013 for Windows, this will only create binaries for WinRT. You will need Visual Studio for Windows Desktop as well to create those desktop tools.

The WinRT mkspec format is <platform>-<architecture>-<toolchain> where platform can be winrt or winphone and architecture can be arm, x86, or x64. The following is an example of building qtbase for WinRT:

  > ./configure -xplatform winrt-x64-msvc2012 -developer-build -release
  > nmake/jom

Running Applications from Command Line

WinRT applications must be packaged (including all dependencies) and installed or registered with the application service in order to be launched. The WinRT Runner Tool can be used to launch these applications from the command line.

Package Content

Package content consists of the application executable and its dependencies, as for every Windows application. The dependencies are the needed (Qt) libraries and plugins. Note that Qt plugins have to be put into a folder named after their category (platforms, imageformats, and so on) without using a plugins folder as root. For more information, see Qt for Windows - Deployment.

Additionally, any pre-compiled shaders used by OpenGL applications must also be packaged. See OpenGL Shaders on WinRT.

As WinRT applications are run in a sandboxed environment, setting the path variable to point to the files required will not work.

The windeployqt convenience tool looks up the application's dependencies and copies Qt libraries and plugins to the appropriate directories, as necessary.

In order to be able to run debug builds of your applications you have to register the correct VCLib debug framework. This framework provides the C++ Runtime for Modern UI applications and its files can usually be found in <Path to Microsoft SDKs>\<Windows version>\ExtensionSDKs\Microsoft.VCLibs\<VC Version>\AppX\Debug\<CPU architecture> To register the debug VCLibs for x64 for Visual Studio 2013 on Windows 8.1, run the following command in PowerShell:

  > Add-AppxPackage 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.1\ExtensionSDKs\Microsoft.VCLibs\12.0\AppX\Debug\x64\Microsoft.VCLibs.x64.Debug.12.00.appx'

Note: The WinRT Runner Tool installs these dependencies automatically.

Because all resources are placed to one directory, you can register the directory using an XML file (AppxManifest.xml) and Windows Powershell. The reference for these manifest files can be found here. If you are using a debug build, your AppxManifest has to provide information about its dependency on the just added VCLibs. Additionally, the target processor architecture must be specified (as opposed to the default, 'neutral'). As soon as these requirements are met, change into your packaged directory in PowerShell and call:

  > Add-AppxPackage -Register AppxManifest.xml

Note: The WinRT Runner Tool can perform the same operation with the --install option.

If that worked, you should be able to find your application in Windows 8's start screen. To remove your application, use Windows' built-in way to uninstall applications (right-click or tap and hold the application and choose Uninstall).

Note: The WinRT Runner Tool can perform the same operation with the --remove option.

WinRT Runner Tool

The WinRT Runner Tool can be found in QTDIR/bin/winrtrunner. It is intended to aid in the deployment, launching, and debugging of Qt for WinRT applications. It can be used from the command line, or invoked by the IDE.

Usage: winrtrunner.exe [options] package [arguments]
winrtrunner installs, runs, and collects test results for packages made with Qt.

Options:
  --test                            Installs, starts, collects output, stops (if
                                    needed), and uninstalls the package. This is
                                    the default action of winrtrunner.
  --start                           Starts the package. The package is installed
                                    if it is not already installed. Pass
                                    --install to force reinstallation.
  --debug <debugger>                Starts the package with the debugger
                                    attached. The package is installed if it is
                                    not already installed. Pass --install to
                                    force reinstallation.
  --debugger-arguments <arguments>  Sets the arguments to be passed to the
                                    debugger when --debug is used. If no
                                    debugger was provided, this option is ignored.
  --suspend                         Suspends a running package. When combined
                                    with --stop or --test, the app will be
                                    suspended before being terminated.
  --stop                            Terminates a running package. Can be be
                                    combined with --start and --suspend.
  --wait <seconds>                  If the package is running, waits the given
                                    number of seconds before continuing to the
                                    next task. Passing 0 causes the runner to
                                    wait indefinitely.
  --install                         (Re)installs the package.
  --remove                          Uninstalls the package.
  --device <name|index>             Specifies the device to target as a device
                                    name or index. Use --list-devices to find
                                    available devices. The default device is the
                                    first device found for the active run
                                    profile.
  --profile <name>                  Forces a particular run profile.
  --list-devices                    Lists the available devices (for use with
                                    --device).
  --verbose <level>                 Sets the verbosity level of the message output
                                    (0 - silent, 1 - info, 2 - debug). Defaults
                                    to 1.
  --ignore-errors                   Always exits with code 0, regardless of the
                                    error state.
  -?, -h, --help                    Displays this help.

Arguments:
  package [arguments]               The executable or package manifest to act
                                    upon. Arguments after the package name will
                                    be passed to the application when it starts.

OpenGL Shaders on WinRT

Qt for WinRT uses ANGLE to provide its OpenGL implementation, which generates Direct3D HLSL from OpenGL shader source code, and this source code must be compiled before it can be used by OpenGL APIs, such as those used by the Qt Quick Scene Graph. This is normally accomodated at runtime by the D3D Compiler DLL. However, the traditional D3D Compiler DLL is not available for use by Windows Phone 8.0 applications. Therefore, a proxy drop-in replacement, d3dcompiler_qt.dll, was created to provide precompiled shader binaries from a service running on the host machine, or from a local file path or resource file.

Note: The D3D Compiler API is allowed in Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, so shader precompilation is not required (but may still be used) on those platforms.

Using the Qt D3D Shader Service

The Qt D3D Shader Service can be found in QTDIR/bin/qtd3dservice. It is designed to automatically detect Qt applications running locally and on connected Windows Phone devices and emulators. To use it, simply start the qtd3dservice executable with no arguments. It will then run indefinitely, servicing applications until it is stopped. Other options may be passed to get additional debug output or collect information on previously observed shader sources and binaries.

Usage: qtd3dservice.exe [options]

Options:
  --output <file>    Writes output to a file.
  --verbose <level>  Sets the verbosity level of the message output (0 - silent,
                     1 -info, 2 - debug). Defaults to 1.
  --list-source      Lists the known shader sources. Use with --app and/or
                     --device to narrow the scope.
  --list-binary      Lists the known shader binaries. Use with --app and/or
                     --device to narrow the scope.
  --app <name>       Specifies the application to act upon.
  --device <name>    Specifies the device to act upon.
  --qrc              Outputs the content of --list-source/--list-binary in Qt
                     resource file format.
  -?, -h, --help     Displays this help.

Packaging Shaders for Deployment

While qtd3dservice will pick up shader sources and generate shader binaries during runtime, it obviously cannot be used in published applications. It is the responsibility of the developer to package these shader "blobs" with the application before publishing. To do so, first run through your application on the target device to make sure all shader sources have been compiled. You can confirm this by running the application without the shader service running, as the blobs will be picked up from the local device cache.

Once this has been done, generate a QRC for packaging the shader blobs into the application. For example, to get a QRC for a Windows Phone device and an application ID of {975735f9-70ac-4593-b1cb-a9bec8cad348}, you would use the following command:

    > qtd3dservice --list-binary --qrc --device 0 --app {975735f9-70ac-4593-b1cb-a9bec8cad348} --output /path/to/project/shaders.qrc

You may then include this file in your qmake project file using the following line:

    RESOURCES += shaders.qrc

The precompiled shaders will be used by ANGLE when encountered in your application.