Daz plugin development
Alex@DBG
Posts: 61
Hey everyone,
I had an idea for a plugin that would help me in my workflow, and I have tried to develop it myself. Now, I'm not a programmer, I can read some Python and C++ code, but in this I tried to use AI ( Chat GPT and Claude ).
Anyway, We got some code working, but I got stuck at the QT part of it.
From what I could find on the forums, Daz SDK needs QT 4.8.7 X64, but the QT archives have only a X86 ( 32 ) variant stocked. Am I missing something? Is there another place where I could get the needed QT version?
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Comments
ALso, I have been trying this with VS 22. I have read now that that is not the best way, and I should do it with VS 10?
You don't need any version of Qt as such, al the needed stuff is in the application or handled by the SDK. There is a fairly lengthy thread on this in the SDK forum.
I am a longtime UNIX developer and, before DAZ Studio, I hadn't done Win32 in about 20 years. So I joke to myself by saying that I was just too ignorant to know that VS2022 doesn't work, and so did it anyway.
Seriously, I've been using VS2022 for years, with absolutely no problems at all. I remember that it asked to install one of the runtime libraries, but that was all.
Based on the number of experienced programmers who are having trouble with the SDK, you've got some challenges ahead. But let's give it a try. But it would be helpful if you could be a little more precise than "I got stuck"...
To answer your question, yes, it is a good idea to download Qt. All the tools, libs, DLLs and headers are all in the sdk, but it doesn't include Designer, the excellent WYSIWYG GUI editor. You want this.
Note that your comment about there only being an x86 version, while true, is irrelevant because you're picking up all your binaries from the SDK, not the Qt install. You could use the headers from the Qt install if you wanted to, they're the same as the ones in the SDK, and well designed headers don't have a bitness to them, i.e. it is the compiler that determines whether its 32 or 64 bits, not the header itself.
I am assuming that you either got compile errors because it couldn't find Qt headers, or you got it to compile, but the liker couldn't find the libs.
To fix the compile errors, make sure that the SDK include directory is in your solution's include paths (for all combinations of Debug/Release and 23/64 bit), and make sure the #include pragmas in your code are of the form <QtCore/QString>, for example, because the Qt headers are not in the include directory but rather segragated into their own directories. This follows normal Qt convention and the DAZ devs preserved it.
If it's link errors, make sure your solution's linker options include the x64 lib directory in the SDK, and the input files list all of the libs like dzcore and the Qt libs. Ensure that you use the release versions of all the libraries, not the debug versions... you're not trying to debug Qt here.
Hope this helps.
@Richard Haseltine
Maybe move this to the SDK forum? There are probably many, many people who are unsure about the official Qt distro versus the version shipped with the SDK an they're unlikely to find this thread with the forum search being what it is.
Moved to SDK Developer Forum
Designer is included with DS, it can be useful for scripting even without the SDK.
Can you, or anyone, please point out its location? I cannot seem to locate it.
Edit: Nevermind, Found it. It's not in the SDK, but the DAZ Studio directory for some reason. In that case, I stand corrected... I cannot think of another reason why one would want/need to download the official Qt then.