Qt4 as both framework and library

Michael Dickens michaelld at macports.org
Wed Sep 19 08:44:18 PDT 2012


After some thinking about the amount of effort I've put into relocating
Qt's frameworks from ${prefix}/lib to ${prefix}/Library/Frameworks, and
how much more will need to be done -- e.g., for CMake, and pretty much
any CMake-using port that tries to find Qt4, to work reliably when
trying to find "qt4-mac +framework" -- I think it makes sense to remove
the +framework variant and just always install qt4-mac as -both-
framework and libraries / headers.  Internal to the actual Qt build,
+framework will be used since that fixes some issues with ports that
depend on Qt being installed in that way.  And, then links are created
for headers and libraries & related files.

I'm also updating qt4-mac to 4.8.3_0 at the same time, which brings a
few small fixes but otherwise doesn't change too much.

I've been testing this change out on ports that depend on qt4-mac, and
thus far they all work as desired.  A few figure (e.g., qwt) out that Qt
is installed as a framework and then replicate that behavior (installing
themselves as a framework into the correct frameworks directory), while
most find Qt as libraries and replicate that side (installing themselves
into the libraries directory).  Overall, so far in my testing this
change is a win-win solution for everyone: ports relying on Qt4 being
installed as a framework will be happy (since it is internally installed
that way), while those just looking to find Qt4 as libraries will find
them in the usual place with the usual names.

But, before I make this change I want to reach out to you, MacPorts
developers and users, to ask what you think of it.  Does it make sense
to you?  Do you think your ports / projects will work with it?  Do you
require Qt to be installed one way or the other?

I appreciate any comments / thoughts / discussion. - MLD


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