Qt Creator 8 released

We are happy to announce the release of Qt Creator 8!

General

If you wonder where the menu item for opening the options dialog went on Windows and Linux:
It is now Edit > Preferences.

C++

We removed the libclang based code model fallback and now rely on Clangd and our LSP client implementation. Clangd was already default in Qt Creator 7, and optional before that. Our internal code model still exists and can be used as a fallback by turning Clangd off in the settings. If your development machine has little memory, Qt Creator will turn Clangd off by default and inform you. You can always turn on and use Clangd anyway, but be aware that Clangd is comparatively resource-hungry. We also improved the performance of the compile_command.json generation that we do for Clangd, and fixed many other issues.

QML

We fixed the handling of JavaScript string templates, and issues with the nullish coalescing operator. When following a symbol, it could happen that Qt Creator opened the corresponding QML file from the build directory instead of the source directory, which should now be fixed. If you manage to open such a QML file from the build directory anyhow, the editor now shows a warning that you are about to edit a generated file.

Python

We switched to python-lsp-server by default. You can configure the new language server with a separate preferences page at Python > Language Server Configuration. We also made the code model aware of unsaved changes in UI files, and fixed some performance issues.

CMake

CMake projects now provide a new "Profile" build configuration template, that combines the "RelWithDebInfo" CMake build type with "QML debugging and profiling". Instead of hardcoding the QML debugging option for "Debug" and "RelWithDebInfo" CMake build types in our project templates, we now solely rely on the "QML debugging and profiling" option in Qt Creator, which is now turned on by default for "Debug" and "Profile" build configurations. Existing build directories are not affected.

Known issue: The CMake toolchain file that the Android NDK 22.1 ships overwrites our default setting for QML debugging. In that case you need to switch "QML debugging and profiling" to "Enable" in the build settings and select "Run CMake" manually first.

New Plugins

We added experimental support for Coco, the code coverage analysis tool. The integration shows code coverage as annotations in Qt Creator's code editor.

We added experimental support for GitLab. Browse and clone projects, and connect your checkouts with a GitLab instance to receive event notifications in the Version Control view.

Windows

We removed support for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). ARM MSVC toolchains are now detected on Windows hosts.

Android

For Android we added the option to connect devices via WiFi, and fixed issues with newer SDK tools.

iOS

We improved the speed of consecutive deployment while developing, by deploying only the differences to the previously deployed files.

Docker

Docker support is progressing with bug fixes and lots of internal refactorings for supporting remote processes and files.

Please find more details about the fixes and other improvements in our change log.

Get Qt Creator 8

The opensource version is available on the Qt download page under "Qt Creator", and you find commercially licensed packages on the Qt Account Portal. Qt Creator 8 is also available as an update in the online installer. Please post issues in our bug tracker. You can also find us on IRC on #qt-creator on irc.libera.chat, and on the Qt Creator mailing list.

You can read the Qt Creator Manual in Qt Creator in the Help mode or access it online in the Qt documentation portal.