Build QAppImageUpdate as Qt Plugin

QAppImageUpdate can compiled as a Qt Plugin. When it is built as a Qt Plugin, QAppImageUpdate can be used from any programming language that supports Qt.

Qt plugins thus makes us to maintain a single code base instead of maintaining a lot of ports. This makes less bug in the code base and there is no time wasted in making bindings.

You can see the plugin interface here.

To read more about Qt plugins, Please refer the official documentation.

Rules in Plugin Usage

There are specific rules on how plugins are handled by Qt. The following are the key rules in plugin usage.

• A Qt framework whose major version is higher or equal to the Qt framework used to build the plugin should work fine with no errors.

• If you build against Qt Framework 5.6.0 then all Qt Framework above and equal to 5.6.0 can use the plugin without re-compiling.

• You cannot use the plugin in Qt Framework having lower major version than the Qt Framework used to build the plugin.

Using QMake.

You just need to enable the BUILD_AS_PLUGIN flag in your config.

  $ qmake "CONFIG+=BUILD_AS_PLUGIN" [ProjectFolder]

Now you should have libQAppImageUpdate.so file which is your plugin. Now use this file with QPluginLoader provided by your Qt bindings for your specific programming language.

See the guides on examples on how this is done.

Using CMake

Same as in QMake, you just need to enable BUILD_AS_PLUGIN flag,

 $ cmake -DBUILD_AS_PLUGIN=ON [ProjectFolder]

Now you should have libQAppImageUpdate.so file which is your plugin. Now use this file with QPluginLoader provided by your Qt bindings for your specific programming language.

See the guides on examples on how this is done.