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Overview

Qt Creator is an integrated development environment(IDE) which provides you with the tools needed to design and develop applications within the Qt application framework. Qt is designed for developing applications and user interfaces, which can be deployed on multiple operating systems and platforms. Qt Creator provides you the tools necessary at any point within the application development cycle, from initial project creation until deployment of your application onto the targeted platforms.

Compiling your C++ code in Qt Creator can be time consuming, especially for large source code files - this is where IncrediBuild kicks in. By distributing compilation tasks to multiple cores across your local or cloud based network, IncrediBuild can highly accelerate Qt Creator compilation times.

Additionally, building your Qt Creator projects with IncrediBuild will allow you to benefit from the IncrediBuild Build Monitor, which visualizes your compilation progress and provides some valuable productivity features.

Supported Versions and Build Systems

The IncrediBuild plugin for Qt Creator was developed and tested on Qt Creator versions 4.2 to 4.10, and is supported on both Windows and Linux operating systems.
Qt Creator can execute builds using a variety of build tools generators. The following build tools are supported by IncrediBuild:

jom
ninja
waf
make
cmake/qmake
qbs - to be supported soon

IncrediBuild supports all the common compilers used by these build tools.

Configuration

Note: In order to gain the benefits of IncrediBuild acceleration, you need to set up the necessary IncrediBuild Helper Agents on the necessary machines. For more information on Agents and IncrediBuild's components please check out the IncrediBuild architecture and terminology overview. For help with setup and installation check out our Setup and Installation Guide.
Configuring and IncrediBuild Windows build step (BuildConsole) and an IncrediBuild Linux build step (IBConsole) is a bit different, so we will address them separately.

In all text fields which are not drop-down menus or predefined text fields, you can enter Qt variables and IncrediBuild will automatically translate the variables to their appropriate values.

IncrediBuild for Windows

When clicking the Details button for the IncrediBuild for Windows Build Step these options will appear:

IncrediBuild for Linux

When pressing the Details button for the IncrediBuild for Linux Build Step, these options will appear:

For more information on the different options of the configuration fields see the appendix at the end.

Setting up Qt Creator to run with IncrediBuild

In order for IncrediBuild to accelerate your Qt Creator compilations, you first need to make sure IncrediBuild is properly installed and configured in your environment and that a valid IncrediBuild license is successfully loaded to your IncrediBuild Coordinator.
For more information please refer to the IncrediBuild user manual or contact us directly at support@incredibuild.com
Once you have IncrediBuild correctly set up and running, you can install the IncrediBuild Qt Creator IDE plugin just by copying the appropriate plugin file to ...\QtCreator\lib\qtcreator\plugins' directory.
There are different plugins installations, depending on your Qt Creator version and operating system (32 bit \ 64 bit).

How to Use

Once the IncrediBuild plugin is installed, you will be able to add the "IncrediBuild for Windows" or "IncrediBuild for Linux" build steps to your Qt Creator from the Build Settings menu, which is accessed by clicking the Projects icon in Qt Creator.
Upon adding an IncrediBuild build step, IncrediBuild will automatically detect the Build Step used in your build settings by iterating over the build steps you already defined.
The initial build step settings will then be part of your IncrediBuild build step, so your usual build tool will still be used, but with the added benefit of IncrediBuild's build acceleration. After adding an IncrediBuild Build Step you will be asked if you would like to apply it to all configurations of your project. If you agree, the IncrediBuild step will automatically be added to all relevant build configurations. After IncrediBuild has iterated through your configurations and added itself to your initial Build Steps, it is advised to go through your project configurations, make sure that each step is configured properly, and to disable previous steps that are now irrelevant.

Examples:
i) QMake:
-In this example, the user has defined a qmake command that creates the Make build tool defined in the following Make Build Step.
-Upon Adding the IncrediBuild Build Step, the Command Helper field automatically detects the Build tool being used in the previous Build step, which is Make in this case..
-If you look at the Make command field in "IncrediBuild for Windows" you will see that it is set to a directory containing "jom.exe", as defined in the Make Build Step above it.

ii) CMake:
Likewise, in this example which uses CMake, upon adding the IncrediBuild Build Step, the Build tool is automatically set to CMake.

In order for your compilation to use the IncrediBuild build step instead of your original build step the IncrediBuild plugin will automatically disable your original build step. You can easily revert to executing your original build step by disabling the IncrediBuild build step and re-enabling your original build step as shown in the image below.

After configuring your IncrediBuild build step, simply build your project in Qt Creator as you normally would and Qt Creator will compile using IncrediBuild.

The output of the IncrediBuild console will conveniently appear within your Qt Creator Compile Output console.

An IncrediBuild Build Monitor will open automatically if the "Open Monitor" Checkbox is on (this is checked by default).

Appendix:

IncrediBuild configuration fields table

Windows Version

Field name	Description
Profile.xml	The Profile XML file is used to define how Automatic Interception Interface should handle the various processes involved in a distributed job. It is not necessary for 'Visual Studio' or 'Make and Build tools' builds, but can be used to provide configuration options if those builds use additional processes that are not included in those packages. it is required to configure distributable processes in 'Dev Tools' builds.
Avoid task execution on local machine when possible	Overrides the Agent Settings dialog "Avoid task execution on local machine when possible" option. This frees up more resources on the initiator machine and could be beneficial for distribution in scenarios where the initiating machine is bottlenecking the build with High CPU usage.
Maximum CPUs to utilize in the build	Specifies the maximum amount of remote cores to utilize in the build. Overrides global max. CPUs/Cores in build setting.
Newest allowed Helper machine OS	Specifies the newest operating system installed on a Helper machine to be allowed to participate as helper in the build.
Oldest allowed Helper machine OS	Specifies the oldest operating system installed on a Helper machine to be allowed to participate as Helper in the build.
Build Title	Specifies a custom header line which will be displayed in the beginning of the build output text. This title will also be used for the Build History and Build Monitor displays.
Save IncrediBuild monitor file	Writes a copy of the build progress (.ib_mon) file to the specified location. - If only a folder name is given, IncrediBuild generates a GUID for the file name. - A message containing the location of the saved .ib_mon file is added to the end of the build output.
Suppress STDOUT	Does not write anything to the standard output.
Output Log file	Writes build output to a file.
Show Commands in output	Shows, for each file built, the command-line used by IncrediBuild to build the file.
Show Agents in output	Shows the Agent used to build each file.
Show Time in output	Shows the Start and Finish time for each file built.
Hide IncrediBuild Header in output	Suppresses the 'IncrediBuild' header in the build output.
Internal IncrediBuild logging level	Overrides the internal Incredibuild logging level for this build. Does not affect output or any user accessible logging. Used mainly to troubleshoot issues with the help of IncrediBuild support.
Set an Environment Variable	Sets or overrides environment variables for the context of the build.
Stop On Errors	When specified, the execution will stop as soon as an error is encountered. This is the default behavior in 'Visual Studio' builds, but not the default for 'Make and Build tools' or 'Dev Tools' builds.
Additional Arguments	Add additional buildconsole arguments manually. The value of this field will be concatenated to the final buildconsole command line.
Open Monitor	Opens an IncrediBuild Build Monitor that graphically displays the build's progress once the build starts.
Keep Original Jobs Num	Setting this option to true, forces IncrediBuild to not override the -j command line switch. The default IncrediBuild behavior is to set a high value to the -j command line switch which controls the number of processes that the build tools executed by Qt Creator will execute in parallel (the default IncrediBuild behavior will set this value to 200).

Linux Version

Description	Field name
Specify nice value	Specify nice value. Nice Value should be numeric and between -20 and 19.
Internal IncrediBuild logging level	Overrides the internal Incredibuild logging level for this build. Does not affect output or any user accessible logging. Used mainly to troubleshoot issues with the help of IncrediBuild support.
Keep Original Job Number	Setting this option to true, forces IncrediBuild to not override the -j command line switch. The default IncrediBuild behavior is to set a high value to the -j command line switch which controls the number of processes that the build tools executed by Qt Creator will execute in parallel (the default IncrediBuild behavior will set this value to 200).
Alternate tasks preference
Force remote	Force allow_remote tasks to remote Helpers.