View source for QtCS2017 Qt Deployment Story

Breakout session from Build System BOF

* Qt Quick deployment

* Differentiation between release and deployment to device

* Making Qt installations movable
** QLibraryInfo is horrible (Ossi)
** Not working for bundles

* Asset access: Developer shouldn't need to care about source of asset (qrc, bundle, file ...)
** Apple e.g. defines pretty clearly App Bundle structure
** Linux has also some standards
** Android : Everything is in a zip file
* Arguments for using native format
** If we use the system specific locations, we can use native API to access it
*** Allows e.g. streaming of video file to external player
** qrc has limitations regarding large assets
*** Andre fixed this a while ago (?) by merging asset in a post-compilation step
*** Solution is a tad hacky though

** What's needed?
*** Build System?
*** asset:// accessor?

* Asset Conditioning
** Preparation of assets at compile time
** Requires support in build system
** Should be integrated in IDE, too (e.g. to specify converting png resource into bitmap)
** Build System and IDE also needs to watch for file changes , e.g. if external app changes assets
** Can we limit recompilation of resource files to the files that actually changed?
** For QRC: We have to store metadata about the file format / conditioning

* Qt resources in Qbs
** QMake has RESOURCES, actual files are in .qrc
*** Historical reason: Qt Designer had to edit them
** Qbs could make it easier
*** Runtime mapping of qrc:// to file should be transparent. The mapping could be tweaked by developer, but doesn't have to.

* Can we extend QRC path for identifier to native asset system?
** Exact location / backend can be transparent
** Therefore no need for an additional system
** Proposal for rcc extensions: [[RCCExtensions]]

* What about non-file assets, like colors?
** say "qt-green" being loaded from runtime resource 
** Are there any other examples of resources that aren't files?