path: root/doc/src/whatsnew/whatsnew64.qdoc

// Copyright (C) 2022 The Qt Company Ltd.
// SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-Qt-Commercial OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only

/*!
    \page whatsnew64.html
    \title What's New in Qt 6.4
    \brief Lists the new features in Qt 6.4.
    \ingroup whatsnewqt6

    \section1 New and Restored Modules in Qt 6.4

    Qt 6.4 adds the following modules:

    \list
        \li \l[QtHttpServer]{Qt HTTP Server} - A module for embedding an HTTP
            server into Qt applications. This module is in technical preview,
            API and ABI stability is not guaranteed.
        \li \l[QtQuick3DPhysics]{Qt Quick 3D Physics} - A high-level QML module
            adding physical simulation capabilities to Qt Quick 3D.
    \endlist

    Qt 6.4 reintroduces the \l {Qt TextToSpeech} module from Qt 5. This module
    wasn't present in Qt 6.3. It now uses the CMake build system and works with
    Qt 6.

    You'll find more details about changes to each module in
    \l {Changes to Qt Modules in Qt 6}.

    \section1 New Features in Qt 6.4

    \section2 Qt Core Module

    \list
        \li Added QLatin1StringView as an alias for QLatin1String. This is
            now the recommended name for referring to a Latin-1 string view.
        \li The \c QLatin1StringView(const char *, qsizetype) and
            \c QLatin1StringView(const char *, const char *) constructors are
            made non-explicit.
        \li Added literal operator \c _L1 for creating Latin-1 string and char
            literals in the Qt::Literals::StringLiterals namespace.
        \li Added literal operators \c _s and \c _ba for creating QString and
            QByteArray literals respectively, in the Qt::Literals::StringLiterals
            namespace. Deprecated \c _qs and \c _qba in favor of \c _s and
            \c _ba.
        \li Deprecated QString::count() and QByteArray::count() that take no
            parameters, to avoid confusion with the algorithm overloads of the
            same name. They can be replaced by \c size() or \c length() methods.
        \li QStringEncoder and QStringDecoder support now all codecs supported by ICU
            when Qt is built with ICU support enabled.
        \li In the classes for Android and JNI development, QJniObject and QJniEnvironment,
            overloads have been added for \l{QJniObject::}{callMethod},
            \l{QJniEnvironment::}{findMethod} and similar methods. It is now possible to
            call Java functions and register native methods without specifying a signature
            string.
        \li The new template function \l{QJniObject::construct()} allows instantiating of a
            Java class from C++ without specifying a type or signature string.
        \li QByteArray now has a percentDecoded() instance method as an
            alternative to calling the fromPercentEncoding() static method on
            the instance.
        \li QTextStream now supports input and output of char16_t.
        \li QStringView now has a localeAwareCompare() method and can count()
            how many times a given sub-string appears.
        \li QDate can now be constructed from various std::chrono year-month-day
            structure types, when available, and it has an addDuration() taking
            a std::chrono::days, when available.
        \li QDateTime likewise gains an addDuration(std::chrono::milliseconds),
            along with arithmetic to add or subtract the same type, a difference
            of QDateTime values returning it, and a few static
            pseudo-constructors taking various std::chrono types describing a
            moment in time.
        \li Added QTimeZone::fromStdTimeZonePtr(const std::chrono::time_zone *).
        \li QCalendar's construction by name now accepts QAnyStringView.
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt GUI Module

    \list
        \li Added QTextDocumentFragment::toMarkdown(),
            QTextDocumentFragment::fromMarkdown(),
            and QTextCursor::insertMarkdown().
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt Quick Module

    \list
        \li Several new properties and functions has been added to TableView that improves
        support for keyboard navigation and selection, row- and column selections, animations,
        sub-cell positioning, and more.
        \li TreeView now support selections, and has gained a broader API for expanding
        and collapsing nodes in the tree recursively.

        \li QQuickWidget is now functional with all supported 3D graphics APIs (Vulkan,
            Metal, Direct3D 11) in addition to OpenGL. Applications no longer have to
            enforce rendering with OpenGL when using QQuickWidget.

        \li Added support for arrays of combined image samplers in shaders used with
            custom materials. This is supported by the new function
            QSGMaterialShader::combinedImageSamplerCount() and the enhanced semantics of
            the existing \c texture argument of QSGMaterialShader::updateSampledImage().

        \li Added support changing the polygon rasterization mode from \c solid to \c line
            in QSGMaterialShader::GraphicsPipelineState. (available only when the 3D API
            in use supports this)

        \li \l{QtQuick::ShaderEffectSource::format}{ShaderEffectSource.format} and
            \l{QtQuick::Item::layer.format}{layer.format} were not useful in previous Qt 6
            releases, with the legacy values ignored in practice. This is now documented
            and new, actually useful values are introduced, in particular to enable
            requesting floating point (FP16 or FP32) textures instead of RGBA8, if
            desired.

        \li Added QQuickRenderTarget::fromPaintDevice(), enabling redirecting the output
            from a QQuickWindow using the \c software backend as well.

        \li Added overloads in QQuickRenderTarget that enable specifying the native format
            of the texture or image object. This is relevant in some advanced use cases
            when one has to work with native textures that are not RGBA8. Note that only
            native formats that are supported by Qt's rendering infrastructure are
            accepted.

        \li Added
            \l{QQuickRenderTarget::setMirrorVertically()}{setMirrorVertically()}
            to QQuickRenderTarget, which allows requesting the Qt
            Quick renderer to alter its matrices to get vertically
            flipped results when redirecting the 3D API-based
            rendering into a texture.

        \li Qt Quick windows will now attempt to use the software rasterization platform
            of Direct 3D (WARP) in case the primary graphics device is not compatible with
            Qt, without having to resort to manually setting environment variables.

        \li Added simple heuristics to the \c threaded render loop of the Qt Quick
            scenegraph for recognizing broken vsync-based throttling. When frames are
            rendered/presented too fast, without blocking the render thread, it now
            switches automatically to the regular timer-based approach of running
            animations, thus preventing QML animations running too fast.

        \li Added FrameAnimation for custom animations. Allows running custom scripts
            in synchronization with the animation frames.

    \endlist

    \section2 Qt Quick Controls Module

    \list
        \li Added a new native-looking style for iOS, \l {iOS Style}, as Tech Preview.
        \li TreeViewDelegate has three new properties that describes if it's
        current, selected, or highlighted in the TreeView.
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt Quick Dialogs Module

    \list
        \li Added \l [QtQuickDialogs] {ColorDialog}. This is a native dialog on
            platforms that support it, and a non-native Qt Quick dialog on other
            platforms.

            The non-native dialog supports all of the non-native styles: Basic,
            Fusion, Imagine, Material and Universal.
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt Widgets Module

    \list
        \li QFormLayout has new \l{QFormLayout::}{isRowVisible()} and \l{QFormLayout::}{setRowVisible()}
            member functions, with overloads that allow hiding and showing rows by index, input
            widget, or row layout.
        \li QKeySequenceEdit has a new  \l{QKeySequenceEdit::}{clearButtonEnabled} property. Use it to
            control whether the widget shows a clear button that allows the user to clear the edit.
        \li QWizard has a new slot, \l{QWizard::}{setCurrentId}, that allows applications to move to a
            page without without visiting the pages between the current page and the target.
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt Network Module

    \list
        \li Added QSslServer. This simplifies creation of a server which solely
        communicates over TLS.
        \li QNetworkInformation now has loadBackendByFeatures(Features) and
        loadBackendByName(QStringView), meant to eventually replace the
        corresponding overloaded load(Features/QStringView) functions which are
        now marked as deprecated.
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt Test Module

    \list
        \li QTestEventLoop::enterLoopMSecs() now uses a PreciseTimer if the
            timeout is less than a second.
        \li Custom QTest::compare() implementations should now revise any calls
            to QTest::compare_helper() to use one of the two new overloads
            instead of the old one, which is now deprecated (so as to only
            generate the strings to represent values in a failure report if the
            check actually does fail).
        \li Added QAbstractItemModelTester::setUseFetchMore().
        \li New macros QCOMPARE_{EQ,NE,GT,GE,LT,LE}() support comparisons with
            reporting similar to that of QCOMPARE(). The EQ one does exact
            comparisons, without QCOMPARE()'s customizations. These also come
            with the usual QTRY_COMPARE_*() and QTRY_COMPARE_*_WITH_TIMEOUT()
            variants.
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt QML Module

    \list
      \li QML Language
      \list
        \li You can register custom value types with names now. That is, the
            argument to QML_VALUE_TYPE is no longer ignored. It must be lower
            case. Once registered, you can declare properties of your own value
            types in QML.
        \li You can store any named value type in a list in QML now. For example
            list<rect> in QML is like a QList<QRectF> in C++. This removes the
            need to use var for such properties or wrap their elements into
            objects.
        \li The new pragma ComponentBehavior lets you specify whether components
            defined in a QML file can be used outside of their creation context.
            If not (pragma ComponentBehavior: Bound), then Qt Quick Compiler can
            optimize your code better.
      \endlist
      \li QML Type Compiler (qmltc)
      \list
          \li Expanded QML language coverage
      \endlist
      \li QML Script Compiler (qmlsc, qmlcachegen)
      \list
          \li Various operations on lists of value types are now compiled to C++.
          \li Dead code and dead stores are optimized out more aggressively now.
          \li Type conversions now happen at the place where a value is written,
              not at the place where it's read. If the value is read multiple
              times, this is faster.
      \endlist
      \li QML Linter (qmllint)
      \list
          \li Added new warnings regarding proper use of QtQuick and QtQuick.Controls
      \endlist
      \li QML Language Server (qmlls)
      \list
          \li Added completions support
          \li Added code action fixing for some linter warnings/hints
          \li Moved executable to libexec
      \endlist
      \li Cleaned up CMake API:
      \list
          \li \l{qt_target_compile_qml_to_cpp}{qt_target_compile_qml_to_cpp()} used to invoke the
              QML type compiler is deprecated. Its functionality has been integrated into
              \l{qt_add_qml_module}{qt_add_qml_module()}
      \endlist
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt Quick 3D Module

    \list

        \li Added a preview of lightmap baking support. This provides a static global
            illumination solution with lightmaps pre-generated using raytracing. See
            \l{Lightmaps and Global Illumination} for details.

        \li Added SpecularGlossyMaterial to enable using the specular/glossiness workflow
            instead of metalness/roughness.

        \li Added the \l [QML] {QtQuick3D.Particles3D::}{LineParticle3D} type that allows
            creating line shaped sprite particles.

        \li Added the \l{QtQuick3D::Model::castsReflections}{Model.castsReflection}
            property to control if a model is rendered by reflection probes and if it can
            be seen in reflections. The same property is also introduced for
            \l [QML] {SpriteParticle3D}{sprite particles}.

        \li Added the \l{QtQuick3D::ReflectionProbe::boxOffset}{ReflectionProbe.boxOffset}
            property to move the box relative to the position of the probe without affecting
            the position of the capture point.

        \li Added the \l{QtQuick3D::ReflectionProbe::debugView}{ReflectionProbe.debugView}
            property to display a cube visualizing the probe box.

        \li Added \l [QML] {QtQuick3D.Helpers::}{HeightFieldGeometry} to
            enable creating a height-field geometry from an image file.

        \li Added CubeMapTexture to enable custom materials and post-processing effects to
            work with cube map textures in the shaders. The input is either a \c{.ktx}
            container with image data for all 6 faces, or 6 individual image files.

        \li Added support for rendering a skybox from a cubemap instead of the light
            probe. This can be requested by setting the background mode
            \l{QtQuick3D::SceneEnvironment::backgroundMode}{SceneEnvironment.SkyBoxCubeMap}.

        \li Added
            \l [QML] {QtQuick3D.Helpers::}{ProceduralSkyTextureData} to procedurally generate
            a HDR light probe or sky box texture.

        \li Improved shadow rendering for point and spot lights.

        \li Added the \l{QtQuick3D::View3D::}{renderFormat} property to View3D
            to allow specifying the backing texture format when the View3D is using its
            (default) Offscreen render mode. The available values are the same as with
            \l{QtQuick::ShaderEffectSource::format}{ShaderEffectSource.format} (which
            itself is also revised in 6.4). This enables using floating point textures
            instead of the default RGBA8.

        \li Support for importing UIP files was removed. The mapping from old Qt 3D Studio
            features to Qt Quick 3D was problematic in previous releases
            already. Therefore, Qt 6.4 removes support for \c{.uip} files from the \c
            balsam tool.

    \endlist

    \section2 Qt Connectivity Module

    \list
        \li \l{QNdefMessage} is no longer exported. This class inherits
        \l{QList} publicly, but QList isn't designed to be inherited by
        an exported class.

        \warning This is not backward compatible, but this will prevent future
        BC breaks going forward.

        \li In Qt Bluetooth various error enums are extended with new error
        codes that represent a missing permissions error. Currently these codes
        are used on Android and \macos/iOS.
        See \l {QBluetoothLocalDevice::MissingPermissionsError} as an example.
    \endlist

    \section2 Qt WebEngine Module

    \list
        \li HTML5 file-system access API added, controlled by QWebEngineFileSystemAccessRequest
        \li QWebEngineLoadingInfo improved error codes, in particular for HTTP errors
        \li QWebEngineView::setPage() now works on pages already loaded
        \li QWebEngineSettings::NavigateOnDrop added to allow disabling navigation on drag-an-drop of URLs
        \li QWebEngineUrlRequestInfo::ResourceTypeWebSocket added to allow interception of websocket connections

    \endlist

    \section1 Platform Changes

    \section2 WebAssembly

    Qt is now fully supported on the WebAssembly platform. See the platform
    documentation at \l{Qt for WebAssembly} for details.

    \section2 Mobile Platforms

    \section3 Android

    \list
        \li Updated Gradle to 7.4.2 and Android Gradle Plugin to 7.2.1.
        \li Updated NDK to r23b (23.1.7779620).
        \li Added CMake variables \l QT_ANDROID_SIGN_APK and \l QT_ANDROID_SIGN_AAB
            to build signed packages directly from CMake.
        \li Android Accessibility is now aware of scroll events.
        \li Improved assets loading speed for Android apps.
    \endlist

    \section2 Embedded Platforms

    \section3 Boot to Qt

    \list
        \li Boot to Qt stack was updated to use Yocto 4.0.3 (kirkstone).
        \li NXP i.MX8M Plus LPDDR4 EVK added as a new reference device.
    \endlist

    \section3 QNX

    \list
        \li Added support for \l{Qt Multimedia}.
    \endlist

    \section3 WebOS

    \list
        \li Qt 6.4 has been verified to work with LG webOS OSE 2.18.0 (\l{Qt for webOS}).
    \endlist

    \section1 List of API Changes

    These pages contain an overview of API changes in Qt 6.4:
    \list
        \li \l {New Classes and Functions in Qt 6.4}
        \li \l {Obsolete Classes}
    \endlist
*/

/*!
    \page newclasses64.html
    \title New Classes and Functions in Qt 6.4
    \ingroup whatsnewqt6
    \brief A list of new APIs in Qt 6.4.

    This page contains a comprehensive list of all new classes and functions
    introduced in Qt 6.4.

    \sincelist 6.4
*/