qt-creator/doc/src/qtquick/qtquick-modules-with-plugins.qdoc

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/*!
    \contentspage index.html
    \previouspage quick-export-to-qml.html
    \page creator-qml-modules-with-plugins.html
    \nextpage creator-using-qt-designer.html

    \title Using QML Modules with Plugins

    QML modules may use plugins to expose components defined in C++ to QML
    applications. \QC cannot load the plugins to determine the details of
    the contained components, and therefore, the modules must provide extra type
    information for code completion and the semantic checks to work correctly.

    When you write a QML module or use QML from a C++ application you typically
    register new types with \l{QQmlEngine#qmlRegisterType-3}{qmlRegisterType()} or expose some
    class instances with \l{QQmlContext::setContextProperty()}. The \QC C++
    code model now scans for these calls and
    tells the QML code model about them. This means that properties are
    displayed during code completion and the JavaScript code checker does not
    complain about unknown types. However, this works only when the source code
    is available, and therefore, you must explicitly generate type information
    for QML modules with plugins before distributing them.

    Ideally, QML modules have a \c{plugins.qmltypes} file in the same directory
    as the \c qmldir file. The \c qmltypes file contains a description of the
    types exported by the module's plugins and is loaded by \QC when the
    module is imported.

    For Qt 4.8 and later, one or more \c qmltypes files can be listed in the
    \c qmldir file under the \c typeinfo header. These files will be read in
    addition to \c{plugins.qmltypes}. For more information, see
    \l{Writing a qmltypes File}.

    \section1 Generating qmltypes Files

    You can create and edit \c qmltypes files manually, but you are recommended
    to use the \c qmlplugindump tool shipped with Qt 4.8 and later to generate
    them automatically.

    Once you have obtained qmlplugindump for the Qt version the QML module's
    plugins were compiled with, run the following command to load My.Module
    version 1.0 from \c{/import/path/my/module} including all its plugins and
    output a description of the plugins' types to
    \c{/import/path/my/module/plugins.qmltypes}:

    \code
    qmlplugindump My.Module 1.0 /import/path > /import/path/my/module/plugins.qmltypes
    \endcode

    You can safely ignore the debug output.

    For Qt 4.7.x, you can compile a version of the tool called \c qmldump from
    the sources in \c{<QtCreator>/share/qtcreator/qml/qmldump} if the Qt version
    contains private headers.

    \section1 Dumping Plugins Automatically

    If a module with plugins lacks the \c qmltypes file, \QC tries to generate
    a temporary file itself by running the \c qmldump program in the background.
    However, this automatic dumping is a fallback mechanism with many points of
    failure and you cannot rely upon it.

*/