When you start Qt Creator, it opens to the Welcome mode, where you can:
You can use the mode selector (1) to change to another Qt Creator mode.
You can use the kit selector (2) to select the kit for running (3), debugging (4), or building (5) the application. Output from these actions is displayed in the output panes (7).
You can use the locator (6) to to browse through projects, files, classes, methods, documentation, and file systems.
The mode selector allows you to quickly switch between tasks such as editing project and source files, designing application UIs, configuring how projects are built and executed, and debugging your applications. To change modes, click the icons, or use the corresponding keyboard shortcut.
The following image displays an example application in Edit mode (1) and Design mode (2).
You can use Qt Creator in the following modes:
Certain actions in Qt Creator trigger a mode change. Clicking on Debug > Start Debugging > Start Debugging automatically switches to Debug mode.
The sidebar is available in the Edit and Debug modes. Use the sidebar to browse projects, files, and bookmarks, and to view the class hierarchy.
You can select the content of the sidebar in the sidebar menu (1):
You can change the view of the sidebar in the following ways:
The additional options in each view are described in the following sections.
The sidebar displays projects in a project tree. The project tree contains a list of all projects open in the current session. The files for each project are grouped according to their file type.
You can use the project tree in the following ways:
If you cannot see a file in the Projects view, switch to the File System view, which shows all the files in the file system.
To keep the position in the tree synchronized with the file opened in the editor, select Synchronize with Editor.
The Class View shows the class hierarchy of the currently open projects. To organize the view by subprojects, click (Show Subprojects).
The Outline view shows the element hierarchy in a QML file.
To view the base classes of a class, right-click the class and select Open Type Hierarchy or press Ctrl+Shift+T.
The task pane in Qt Creator can display one of the following panes:
Output panes are available in all modes. Click the name of an output pane to open the pane. To maximize an open output pane, click the Maximize Output Pane button or press Alt+9.
To search within the Application Output and Compile Output panes, press Ctrl+F when the pane is active. Enter search criteria in the Find field and click the left and right arrows to search down and up in the pane.
To open the General Messages and Version Control panes, select Window > Output Panes. To display the To-Do Entries pane, enable the Todo plugin.
The Issues pane provides lists of following types of issues:
The pane filters out irrelevant output from the build tools and presents the issues in an organized way. To further filter the output by type, select Filter Tree and then select a filter.
Right-clicking on a line brings up a context menu with options to copy the contents and to show a version control annotation view of the line that causes the error message.
To jump from one issue to the next or previous one, press F6 and Shift+F6.
In the Search Results pane, you can search through projects, files on a file system or the currently open file:
The search results are stored in the search history (1) from which you can select earlier searches.
The figure below shows an example search result for all occurrences of textfinder within the "/TextFinder" directory.
The Application Output pane displays the status of a program when it is executed, and the debug output.
Select toolbar buttons to run applications, to attach the debugger to the running application, and to stop running or debugging.
The Compile Output pane provides all output from the compiler. The Compile Output is a more detailed version of information displayed in the Issues pane.
Double-click on a file name in an error message to open the file in the code editor.
Select the Cancel Build button to cancel the build.
The To-Do List Entries pane lists the BUG, FIXME, NOTE, TODO, and WARNING keywords from the current file or from all project files. The keywords are organized into information, warning, and error categories.
To add keywords, select Tools > Options > To-Do > Add. Set an icon and a line background color for the keyword. To change the icons and colors set for an existing keyword, select Edit.
To determine whether the keywords in the whole project or in the current file are displayed by default, select Scanning scope.
The Todo plugin is disabled by default. To enable the plugin, select Help > About Plugins > Utilities > Todo and restart Qt Creator.
In addition, you can open task list files generated by code scanning and analysis tools in the Issues pane. For more information, see Showing Task List Files in Issues Pane.
Qt Creator has been localized into several languages. If the system language is one of the supported languages, it is automatically selected. To change the language, select Tools > Options > Environment and select a language in the Language field. The change takes effect after you restart Qt Creator.
Qt Creator opens image files in the image viewer.
Use the toolbar buttons (1) or keyboard shortcuts to:
Qt Creator caters not only to developers who are used to using the mouse, but also to developers who are more comfortable with the keyboard. A wide range of keyboard and navigation shortcuts are available to help speed up the process of developing your application.
For a list of useful Qt Creator features described in other parts of the documentation, see Tips and Tricks.