Newbie overwhelmed by choices of compiler and IDE

[dexygen]

I'm overwhelmed by the choices in the QT evaluation email I just received and would appreciate some guidance. As for my needs, I'm going to start on Windows but would eventually like to port what I write to *nix and/or Mac. I am only going to be using QT for the webkit library and I'm pretty sure it's going to be as simple as pointing a QWebView at a localhost URL. I've done this with Java's QT Jambi, but I'm completely new to C++. Probably the most important thing is I want the executable I distribute to be all that's required, in other words that it contains all the QT/Webkit libraries it needs.

Hope this is enough information to get input as to which of the following, from the email, I should start with. Thanks in advance!

WHERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR EVALUATION
---------------------------------

Qt 4.8.4 for Windows (Src and VS2008 32bit Binary)
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download/qt-win-commercial-4.8.4-vs2008.exe

Qt Visual Studio Addin 1.1.11 for Qt4 (Binary)
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download/qt-vs-addin-1.1.11.exe

Qt 4.8.4 for Windows (Src and VS2010 32bit Binary)
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download/qt-win-commercial-4.8.4-vs2010.exe

Qt 4.8.4 for Windows (Src and MinGW 32bit Binary)
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download/qt-win-commercial-4.8.4-mingw.exe

Qt Creator 2.6.2 for Windows (32bit Binary)
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download_creator/qt-creator-win-commercial-2.7.0.exe

Qt 4.8.4 for Windows (Src and VS2010 64bit Binary)
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download/qt-win-commercial-4.8.4-vs2010-64bit.exe

MinGW GCC 4.4.0
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download/MinGW-gcc440.zip

Qt Commercial Charts 1.2.1
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download_charts/qt-commercial-charts-src-1.2.1.zip

Qt 4.8 SDK for Windows
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download_sdk/QtCommercialSDK-online-win-x86-v1.0.3.exe

Qt 5.0.1 Sources
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download_50/qt-everywhere-commercial-src-5.0.1.zip

Qt 5.0.1 Offline SDK for Windows MinGW 4.7 32-bit
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download_50/qt-windows-commercial-5.0.1-mingw47_32-x86-offline.exe

Qt 5.0.1 Offline SDK for Windows VS2010 32-bit
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download_50/qt-windows-commercial-5.0.1-msvc2010_32-x86-offline.exe

Qt Visual Studio Addin 1.2.0 for Qt5 (Binary)
http://dist.qt.digia.com/developer/download_50/qt-vs-addin-1.2.0.exe

[aamer4yu]

Hey wait,, why would you want to go for Qt Commercial edition ? You can have open source versions too.

So first decide between open source and commercial versions

You can then start with Qt 4.8.4 based on MinGW. You will have similar env for linux too then.

Hope that helps :)

[wysota]

I'd rather suggest using Qt 5.

[ChrisW67]

Probably the most important thing is I want the executable I distribute to be all that's required, in other words that it contains all the QT/Webkit libraries it needs.
Each of these contains a complete set of Qt libraries, either Qt4 or Qt5, built using the specified compiler. You need to select your Qt version, as wysota says start with 5, and then the one that matches your Windows C++ compiler. If you have no C++ compiler then the "Qt 5.0.1 Offline SDK for Windows MinGW 4.7 32-bit" also contains an open source compiler and related tools.

None of these bundles ships with OpenSSL libraries, which you can source separately, but otherwise Qt Webkit should work out-of-the-box.

[wysota]

An additional note is that if you "want the executable you distribute to be all that's required" then you will need to rebuild Qt statically (none of the installers will install a statically compiled Qt version) and build your app against that, however then you may end up with licensing quirks (especially when using WebKit which is strictly LGPL regardless if you have commercial license on Qt or not).

[dexygen]

Thanks everybody I downloaded the open source version of QT5. I have other issues to overcome now before I worry about static linking though.