Qt 4.8 provides many improvements and enhancements over the previous releases in the Qt 4 series. This document covers the most important features in this release, separated by category.

A list of other Qt 4 features can be found on the What's New in Qt 4 page.

Qt Quick 1.1

Qt Quick 1.1 introduces new changes such as new properties and better performance.

• Right-To-Left text support
• Improved image caching
• Text input improvements - Support for split-screen virtual keyboard
• PinchArea Element - enables simple pinch gesture handling
• New properties for QML Elements.

Qt Platform Abstraction -- Lighthouse

QPA allows porting Qt to different windowing systems and devices easier. It provides a clean abstraction layer for porting QtGui to new window systems.

Note: QPA is considered an experimental feature in Qt 4.8. In Qt 5 it is a supported and complete feature.

Qt WebKit 2.2

The new Qt WebKit release introduces bug fixes, performance improvements, and greater compiler compatibility.

Threaded OpenGL

Many Qt OpenGL functions are now thread-safe. Threads that cater to different situations are now available.

• Buffer swapping thread
• Texture uploading thread
• QPainter thread

Deprecated Items in Qt 4.8

As part of Open Governance, modules in Qt 4.8 will receive maintainers and receive different support levels.

Currently, a module has an activity classification, the Module Maturity Level. As well, a list of modules and their maturity level is in the Qt Developer Network.

• Qt Modules' Maturity Level - Description - description of the different maturity levels
• Qt Modules' Maturity Levels - Modules List - list of the Qt modules and their maturity level

Additions to the Qt API

Qt 4.8 introduces changes to the Qt API.

• C++11 support: Qt supports some of the features of the C++11 standard. QList, QVector and QStringList can be initialized with initializer lists. Most of the tool classes have a move operator. It is possible to use lambda functions in some of the QtConcurrent functions.
• Localization API

  Changes to the Localization APIs include improvements to QLocale and more support for different language code formats.

  • QLocale::quoteString() - for localized quotes
  • QLocale::createSeparatedList() - for localized list separation (e.g. "1, 2 and 3")
  • QLocale::bcp47Name() - for locale names in the canonical form according to RFC 5646 - BCP47
  • QLocale::matchingLocales() - to get a list of locales that match a criteria - e.g. a list of locales that use French language.
  • QLocale::firstDayOfWeek()
  • QLocale::weekdays()
  • QLocale::currencySymbol()
  • QLocale::toCurrencyString() - number formatting for currencies
  • QLocale::uiLanguages()
  • QLocale::nativeLanguageName()
  • QLocale::nativeCountryName()
• IP Multicast API
• Multithreaded HTTP
• QThreadLocalStorage can now store simple objects in addition to pointers

New Classes, Functions, Macros, etc.

• New Classes
• New Member Functions
• New Global Functions
• New Macros
• New Enum Types
• New Typedefs
• New Properties

New Classes

New Member Functions

Class QGraphicsWebView:

Class QWebPage:

Class QThreadPool:

Class QProcessEnvironment:

Class QUrl:

Class QAbstractItemModel:

Class QObject:

Class QSharedMemory:

Class QTranslator:

Class QVariant:

Class QUuid:

Class QBitArray:

Class QByteArray:

Class QContiguousCache:

Class QChar:

Class QElapsedTimer:

Class QHash:

Class QMultiHash:

Class QLinkedList:

Class QList:

Class QLocale:

Class QMap:

Class QQueue:

Class QPoint:

Class QMultiMap:

Class QRegExp:

Class QSet:

Class QString:

Class QStack:

Class QStringRef:

Class QVarLengthArray:

Class QVector:

Class QXmlStreamWriter:

Class QDBusAbstractInterface:

Class QDBusConnection:

Class QGraphicsGridLayout:

Class QGraphicsLayout:

Class QBitmap:

Class QIcon:

Class QImage:

Class QPicture:

Class QPixmap:

Class QAbstractProxyModel:

Class QApplication:

Class QFileOpenEvent:

Class QKeySequence:

Class QSizePolicy:

Class QWidget:

Class QBrush:

Class QRadialGradient:

Class QPainter:

Class QPainterPath:

Class QPolygon:

Class QPen:

Class QPolygonF:

Class QPrinterInfo:

Class QRegion:

Class QFont:

Class QFontMetrics:

Class QFontInfo:

Class QFontMetricsF:

Class QTextDocument:

Class QTextCharFormat:

Class QTextBlockFormat:

Class QTextListFormat:

Class QTextLayout:

Class QUndoCommand:

Class QCheckBox:

Class QLineEdit:

Class QRadioButton:

Class QTabWidget:

Class QNetworkAccessManager:

Class QNetworkReply:

Class QNetworkConfigurationManager:

Class QNetworkProxyQuery:

Class QNativeSocketEngine:

Class QUdpSocket:

Class QSslConfiguration:

Class QSslSocket:

Class QGLFormat:

Class QGLContext:

Class QGLFramebufferObjectFormat:

Class QSqlRelationalTableModel:

Class QHelpSearchQueryWidget:

New Global Functions

New Macros

New Enum Types

New Typedefs

New Properties