Qt Android Application in Visual Studio

[mentalmushroom]

I'd like to know if it's possible to develop Qt android applications with Visual Studio. If so, could somebody give me advice on how to do that? I use Visual Studio 2015 (Community) and Qt 5.6 (Windows + Android versions) running on Windows 8.1 x64.

I succeeded in building Qt sensors sample with Qt Creator, but when I try to create a Visual Studio project

C:\Qt\5.6.0-android\5.6\android_armv7\bin\qmake.exe -spec win32-msvc2015 -tp vc
it generates a desktop-like application targeting x86 architecture (ARM is not available) which in addition fails to compile not finding "GLES2/gl2.h".

[d_stranz]

You are including the wrong mkspec file. Even though you are building through Visual Studio, it is using the android g++ toolchain. So you have to tell qmake to use the android-g++ mkspec.


Magicians do not exist

That's just an illusion.

[mentalmushroom]

Ok, I tried this
C:\Qt\5.6.0-android\5.6\android_armv7\bin\qmake.exe -spec android-g++ -tp vc
and this
C:\Qt\5.6.0-android\5.6\android_armv7\bin\qmake.exe -spec android-g++ -t vcapp
The answer is
WARNING: Unable to generate output for: Z:/test/Makefile [TEMPLATE vcapp]
Not sure what Makefile it tried to generate output for as there is no Makefile. I have only a .pro file and want to generate visual studio project for android development.

[d_stranz]

What happens if you import the .pro file into Visual Studio using the Qt VS Plugin? If you build it from within VS, at some point you will have to tell VS which toolchain to use (via the "Configuration Manager"). You are sort of trying to mix apples and oranges here - either let qmake do the work of managing your project or let Visual Studio do it. So if you use the VS plugin wizard to start your project from scratch from within VS, then you'll likely have fewer mismatch issues.

[mentalmushroom]

If you mean Qt Visual Studio Add-in, as far as I know it doesn't work with VS2015, which I use:
http://blog.qt.io/blog/2016/03/16/qt-5-6-released/

Thus, I can't try that...

[d_stranz]

I don't know about that. It's working for me.

The Add-in installs itself to VS 2015, as the "Help -> About" in VS 2015 shows.



Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2015
Version 14.0.23107.0 D14REL
Microsoft .NET Framework
Version 4.6.01038

Installed Version: Professional

Visual Basic 2015 00322-50050-...
Microsoft Visual Basic 2015

Visual C# 2015 00322-50050-...
Microsoft Visual C# 2015

Visual C++ 2015 00322-50050-...
Microsoft Visual C++ 2015

AnkhSVN - Subversion Support for Visual Studio 2.6.12735.14
AnkhSVN - Subversion Support for Visual Studio 2.6.12735.14
* Ankh.Package 2.6.12735.14
* Subversion 1.9.2 via SharpSvn 1.9002.3777.76

SharpSvn is linked to: Apr 1.5.1, Apr-util 1.5.4, Cyrus Sasl 2.1.26, eXpat 2.1.0, LibSSH2 1.6.0, OpenSSL 1.0.2d 9 Jul 2015, Serf 1.3.8, SQLite 3.8.11.1, Subversion 1.9.2-SharpSvn, Utf8proc 1.1.5, ZLib 1.2.8
SharpSvn is optionally linked to: Berkeley DB 4.4.20, SharpPlink 0.65.0(SharpSvn)

Atomineer Pro Documentation 1.0
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Qt5Package 1.3.9
Fully functional repeats Qt VS Addin

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Visual C++ for Cross Platform Mobile Development 1.0
Visual C++ for Cross Platform Mobile Development

Visual C++ for Cross Platform Mobile Development 1.0
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And as the screenshot shows, it works when adding a new project to a solution:

11977

[mentalmushroom]

Ok, Qt5Package seems to be a third-party replacement for Qt Add-in. I've just installed it. Unfortunately it doesn't work well. Probably, because I have several Qt versions installed and the primary qmake points to Qt4 location.

The first issue I faced when trying to open the .pro file. It complained about not finding qmake and asked whether I had set the qt version. So I tried to add the version for android:


Version name: 5.6-android-armv7
Path: C:\Qt\5.6.0-android\5.6\android_armv7

It failed with the following error:

This Qt version uses an unsupported makefile generator (used: , supported: MSVC.NET, MSBUILD)

Then I tried to add a Qt5 version for desktop:


Qt Version: 5.6-desktop
Path: C:\Qt\5.6.0\5.6\msvc2015

It seemed to work fine, but when I try to build a newly created GUI application it fails with the following:


1>------ Build started: Project: testqtgui, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------
1> Moc'ing testqtgui.h...
1> The system cannot find the path specified.
1> Uic'ing testqtgui.ui...
1> The system cannot find the path specified.
1> Rcc'ing testqtgui.qrc...
1> The system cannot find the path specified.
1>C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft.Cpp\v4.0\V140\Microsoft.Cp pCommon.targets(171,5): error MSB6006: "cmd.exe" exited with code 3.
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

A console application fails to compile in a different way. It can't find QtCore.

Building qmake-generated project in VS still works fine, but not for android.

[d_stranz]

This Qt version uses an unsupported makefile generator (used: , supported: MSVC.NET, MSBUILD)

Google is your friend on this one. Search the entire quoted string, first hit gives the answer.

[mentalmushroom]

Nope... Google didn't prove to be a good friend in this case. The first answer is about Qt5.6-windows-beta and the error is slightly different: they seemed to have their MAKEFILE_GENERATOR set to a wrong value, while mine isn't set at all. I have tried all the suggestions, but none of them worked.

I've found somebody else reporting the same problem for this very extension about Qt-WinRT version, but nobody replied to him:
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/c89ff880-8509-47a4-a262-e4fa07168408

[d_stranz]

Well, sorry. You -can- configure Qt Creator to use the android compilers if you want to go that route instead of using Visual Studio, but I prefer VS myself.