This repository contains simple to install and use ROS-related plugins for the Qt Creator IDE. See the repository wiki for installation and additional information.

The ROS Qt Creator Plug-in is developed specifically for ROS to increase a developers' efficiency by simplifying tasks and creating a centralized location for ROS tools. Since it is built on top of the Qt Creator platform, users have access to all of its existing features like: syntax highlighting, code indexing, editors (C++ , Python, etc.), code completion, version control (Git, Subversion, etc.), debuggers (GDB, CDB, LLDB, etc.), and much more.

The ROS Qt Creator Plug-in provides the following capabilities:

• Import/Create Catkin Workspaces
• Create Catkin Packages
• Custom Build Configuration
  • CatkinMake
  • CatkinTools
• Custom Run Configurations
  • roslaunch
  • rosrun
  • Attach to Node
• Automatic sourcing of the workspace
• Integrated Tabbed Terminal
• Templates
  • Industrial Robot Support Package
  • Basic Launch File
  • Basic URDF File
  • Basic Node File

You can install Qt Creator with the ROS corresponding plugin via the snap store. This will make sure that the Qt Creator version and the ROS plugin version will use matching API and update automatically once a new version has been released. You can install the qtcreator-ros snap by searching in the software centre or from the command line:

sudo snap install qtcreator-ros --classic

To install the plugin manually, use the released plugin archives as described in Plugin Installation. To build the plugin from scratch, e.g. for unreleased Qt Creator versions, just follow the build instructions below.

To build the Qt Creator plugin, you will need Qt Creator, the matching "Plugin Development" package and a recent Qt version. These can be installed either via the official binary installer of via the setup.py script. The latter method allows you to adjust the target Qt Creator version via versions.yaml.

Additionally, you need:

• OpenGL development libraries
• ninja for building
• yaml-cpp
• qtermwidget
• utf8proc

The can be installed via apt on Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libgl1-mesa-dev ninja-build libyaml-cpp-dev libqtermwidget5-0-dev libutf8proc-dev

To use the setup.py script, you will need additional python dependencies:

pip install pyyaml requests py7zr

If Qt Creator and the Plugin Development package are not installed in one of the default folders, you have to tell CMake via CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH where those can be found.

When using the official Qt binary installer with the default installation path, this is:

cmake -B build -GNinja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="~/Qt/Tools/QtCreator/;~/Qt/5.15.2/gcc_64"

When using the setup.py script, the script will show the installation path (which can be adjusted using --install_path) and the compile commands. On x86_64 Linux with the default path, this is:

cmake -B build -GNinja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="/tmp/qtc_sdk/Tools/QtCreator;/tmp/qtc_sdk/5.15.0/gcc_64"

Finally, compile the plugin and create an archive:

cmake --build build --target package

This will create an archive of the format ROSProjectManager-${version}-Linux-${arch}.zip inside the build folder (build by default). This archive can either be imported by Qt Creator via Help → About Plugins… → Install Plugin… or alternatively extracted directly to ~/Qt/Tools/QtCreator/.

Download the plugin archive from the release page and extract it into the root of a Qt Creator installation. Qt Creator can be installed via the official online and offline installer. The Qt Creator root will be ~/Qt/Tools/QtCreator for the online installer and ~/qtcreator-${version} for the offline installer. The following script extracts the archive to the default online installer location:

sudo apt install libarchive-tools # needed for bsdtar
export QTC_ROOT=~/Qt/Tools/QtCreator # online installer
# export QTC_ROOT=~/qtcreator-6.0.0 # offline installer
export PLUGIN_URL=`curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/ros-industrial/ros_qtc_plugin/releases/latest | grep -E 'browser_download_url.*ROSProjectManager-.*-Linux-.*.zip' | cut -d'"' -f 4`
curl -SL $PLUGIN_URL | bsdtar -xzf - -C $QTC_ROOT

Note: Qt Creator from the online installer may notify you about available updates and install them when instructed to do so. The plugin API is only compatible with patch updates. A major or minor update will break the plugin API and Qt Creator will then refuse to load the plugin. Make sure that a compatible plugin version is available before updating Qt Creator, since it is not possible to downgrade to an older Qt Creator version using the online installer. The offline installer installs a specific Qt Creator version and does not provide updates.