Qt 6.3 Alpha Released With New Qt Quick Compiler For Commercial Customers

The Qt Company just announced Qt 6.3 Alpha as the first formal test release for this next Qt6 toolkit update. The Qt Company also lifted the lid on their new Qt Quick Compiler where they are aiming for QML to run at "a speed close to native" for that interpreted language.

Qt 6.3 has been working on a new "Qt Language Server" module, there are a number of new functions in the Qt Core module, Qt Quick has added a MessageDialog that will provide a native dialog message box on supported platforms, "qmltc" as the new QML type compiler, the Qt Wayland Compositor module adds a Qt Shell that supports all windowing system features handled by Qt, Qt Wayland can now support creating custom shell extensions, support for Wayland's Presentation Time protocol, and a variety of other additions.

The new Qt Language Server module with Qt 6.3 implements the Language Server Protocol (LSP) specification and JsonRpc 2.0 protocol for allowing better integration with source code editors / IDEs.

The new QML Type Compiler compiles QML object structures into C++ classes while the new QML Script Compiler will compile functions and expressions into C++ code. There is also a new QML Lint for spotting code that may not translate well with the new compilers. The Qt Company expects that this new QML compiler work will result up to 30% speed-ups for the start-up and execution time.

The Qt Company is making the QML Script Compiler as a technology preview today for commercial customers, including as a new package part of Qt 6.2.1. Qt 6.3 will see "Qt Quick Compiler Extensions" available for Qt commercial users.

From today's Qt announcement. The new Qt Quick Compiler is talking up impressive gains, but at least initially seems targeted for Qt commercial customer usage.

More details on the new Qt Quick Compiler via the Qt.io blog. There is also the 6.3 alpha announcement for those interested.

Qt 6.3 is currently running a few weeks behind schedule but they expect to get to the beta phase around the end of the month. The final release of Qt 6.3 was originally scheduled for mid-March but given the delays to this point may slip into later in the month or even April.