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Qt Online Installer and Maintenance Tool 4.0 alpha have been released today.
After the pre-alpha release, where we improved the unattended installation support with the brand new CLI, we have been improving the meta-data download speed in this release.
The meta-data download time has reduced significantly in all platforms. Actual results depend on the operating system and the number of repositories the license (open-source, commercial variations) enables. Variations in the network throughput affect the download time as well.
For example, to update all the open-source components in Maintenance Tool takes some 10-20 seconds in Installer 3.2.3, while it now takes fractions of seconds.
Commercial Qt package in Windows contains the largest number of components. The meta-data download time has reduced more than 50%, but is still rather long because of the huge number of packages. This is why we decided to keep the categories in the component view page. Categories help users to download the relevant data in just a few seconds.
Improved User Experience with Default Installation
All users do not need the feature to pick up components one-by-one. Most evaluators, for example, prefer having a quick and intuitive installation experience rather than spending time in choosing the components. Now this is possible. The default installation option installs the minimum set of components, required to build and run Qt programs. It is always possible to add more components with Maintenance Tool. Power users may still use the custom installation option to pick up the relevant components.
GUI Improvements
Our goal was to make a small graphical facelift for the alpha release. As a starting point, we added a a small entertaining slide show on the installation page. Instead of staring at the boring list of installed components, the user can see something more amusing - or vice versa.
Forthcoming Releases
There are no changes in the release schedule. The beta release should be out in end of September and the final release in the end of October.
One feature, which is planned to be included in the final release, is the package manager support. It allows Qt add-ons, distributed in Qt Marketplace as sources, to be built in user projects. More details will follow closer to beta.
Where to Get the Installer? How to Contribute?
The new installer is available in Qt Downloads. We look forward to receiving feedback from the users as well. Please submit bugs and features suggestions using the links below:
