Qt 5.8 Hoping To Release Next Week, Last Minute Test Builds

Qt 5.8.0 will hopefully be released in the days ahead.

The Qt Company has issued new Qt 5.8.0 release candidate snapshots this week for testing. The developers believe all official blocker bugs should be fixed with this release but are encouraging last minute testing. If nothing major is discovered, Qt 5.8.0 will be released next week on 17 January.

Those wanting to test what could be the final builds of Qt 5.8 can find them via this Qt mailing list post. Since then some bugs have been pointed out, but it's not clear yet if they'll be promoted to being blocker bugs and thereby potentially delaying next week's release.

Qt 5.8 is running months behind schedule with it originally supposed to have been released at the end of November. But at least it should be in good shape when it finally debuts. New features for Qt 5.8 include a new configuration system, graphics improvements for Qt Quick 2D, a built-in QML cache, an experimental Direct3D 12 back-end for Qt Quick, new Qt Quick Controls 2 additions, Qt WebEngine upgrades, Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) improvements, Qt Network improvements, embedded support improvements, and more. New modules for Qt 5.8 coming are the Qt Wayland Compositor, Qt SCXML, Qt Serial Bus, and new platform support is for Apple tvOS and watchOS. There are also technology previews of Qt Gamepad, Qt Speech, and Qt Network Authentication.