New Features in Qt 5.8

Qt Core Module

• Added at(), operator[], mid(), right(), and left() functions to QLatin1String.

Qt GUI Module

• Added uniqueId() and rotation() to QTouchEvent.
• Added support for dithering when converting to all QImage formats.
• Made the QOpenGLTextureBlitter API public; used particularly in Qt Wayland.
• Added capHeight() to QFontMetrics, QFontMetricsF, and QRawFont.
• Added selection handles on Android, with an edit menu for copy and paste.

Qt Quick Module

• Refactored the Qt Quick scene graph to remove its OpenGL dependency, enabling backends based on other graphics APIs such as Vulkan or Direct3D.
• Integrated the software renderer (previously known as the Qt Quick 2D Renderer) for Qt Quick as a proper scene graph backend.
• Implemented support for partial updates in the software renderer.
• Added an experimental Direct3D 12 backend.
• Implemented caching of code and data structures generated from .qml and .js files to disk, reducing start-up time and memory consumption. The resulting .qmlc and .jsc cache files are memory mapped.
• Cleaned up touch and mouse event delivery, and added a new internal class QQuickPointerEvent for this purpose.

Qt Quick Controls 2 Module

• Added new QML types: Dialog, DialogButtonBox, MenuSeparator, RoundButton, and ToolSeparator.
• Added ripple effects to the Material style.
• Added hover effects to Material and Universal styles
• Added a System theme to Material and Universal styles
• Added new experimental platform QML types: MenuBar, Menu, SystemTrayIcon, ColorDialog, FontDialog, MessageDialog, FileDialog, and FolderDialog.

Qt WebEngine Module

• Based on Chromium 53.
• Updated requirements to MSVC 2015 Update 2 or later on Windows.
• Added view-source scheme support.
• Added support for spellchecking with custom .bdic files.
• Made tooltips (HTML5 global tile attribute) visible.
• Added support for metadata (@include, @exclude, @match, @name, and @run-at) in user scripts.
• QML: Enabled the use of custom dialogs and context menus.
• QML: on eglfs, took the built-in dialogs based on Qt Quick Controls 2 into use.
• Added support for printing.
• Added a setting to enable printing of CSS backgrounds.

Qt Bluetooth Module

• Added Bluetooth Low Energy Peripheral support on macOS, iOS, and WinRT.

Qt Multimedia Module

• Added QAudio::convertVolume() and a matching QML method to convert audio volumes from one scale to another; for example, from logarithmic to linear scale.
• Added support for rendering YUV 4:2:2 (YUYV, UYVY) video frames to VideoOutput QML type.

Qt Network Module

• Added support for TLS-PSK ciphersuites on server side.
• Added support for configurable Diffie-Hellman parameters.
• Added support for HTTP/2 in Network Access Manager.

Qt WebSockets Module

• Added support for TLS-PSK ciphersuites on client and server side.

Qt Charts Module

• Added a candlestick chart type.

Qt 3D Module

• Focused on maturation: Bug fixes, improving performance and test coverage.
• Added a paint to texture feature using QPainter.
• Added optional support for issuing commands to Qt3D aspects (for example, from a profiler).

Embedded Platforms

• Enhanced multi-screen capabilities and configurability with eglfs when running on KMS/DRM, both with GBM and EGLDevice/Stream.
• Added support for 90 and 180 degrees rotation of software-rendered content (QWidget) in eglfs.

Configurability (Qt Lite Project)

• Qt 5.8 comes with a rewritten configuration system that allows for easy customization of Qt builds. The main focus of this feature is for the Device Creation, but it can also be used to tailor a Qt build for mobile or desktop platforms. The new configuration system allows removing individual pieces of functionality and APIs from Qt, creating a more lightweight set of libraries for deployment.

New Modules

• Qt Wayland Compositor
  • Provides a framework to develop a Wayland compositor.
• Qt SCXML
  • Enables static and runtime integration of SCXML models into Qt code.
• Qt Serial Bus
  • Provides access to various industrial serial buses and protocols, such as CAN and ModBus.

These modules were previously released as technology previews, and are now fully supported Qt add-on modules.

Technology Preview Modules

• Qt Gamepad
  • Enables Qt gaming applications to respond to gamepad input.
• Qt Speech
  • Text to speech and speech recognition functionality. Currently only the text to speech features are released. Includes backends for several speech synthesizers on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android.
• Qt Network Authorization
  • Online authorization support with OAuth protocol, versions 1 and 2.

Deprecated Functionality

• Qt Script

Deprecated modules are still included in Qt 5.8, but are considered for removal in future releases.

Removed Functionality

• Qt Quick 2D Renderer (functionality has been merged into Qt Quick).

List of API Changes

The pages below contain a list of API changes in Qt 5.8:

• New Classes and Functions in Qt 5.8
• Obsolete Classes

Additions to Other Qt 5 Releases

• What's New in Qt 5.7
• What's New in Qt 5.6
• What's New in Qt 5.5
• What's New in Qt 5.4
• What's New in Qt 5.3
• What's New in Qt 5.2
• What's New in Qt 5.1
• What's New in Qt 5.0