CopperSpice is a set of individual libraries which can be used to develop cross platform software applications in C++. It is a totally open source project released under the LGPL V2.1 license and was initially derived from the Qt framework. Over the last several years CopperSpice has completely diverged, with a goal of providing a first class GUI library to unite the C++ community.



Our motivation for developing CopperSpice was to change the fundamental design and turn the existing framework into a set of libraries for C++ developers. We are accomplishing this by leveraging modern C++ functionality, new technology, and modern tooling. CopperSpice currently requires C++17 or newer.



You can use CopperSpice with any existing tool chain such as GCC, clang, or MSVC. A C++ program using the CopperSpice libraries can be developed using any editor such as VI, emacs, or Diamond and built using CMake from a shell command line. For an integrated environment Visual Studio or QtCreator can be used for development, building, testing, and deployment.

Libraries

CopperSpice consists of the following libraries which can be linked into any existing C++ application.

CsCore Date/Time, Containers (QVector, QList, QMap, QHash, QStack, etc), File System, JSON, Strings (utf8, utf16) CsGui File Dialogs, Menus, Widgets (QCheckbox, QPushbutton, QLineEdit, etc), Printing CsMultimedia Audio, Video CsNetwork TCP, HTTP, FTP, IPv6, DNS lookups, SSL, URL support CsOpenGL Rendering Context, Shader CsScript JavaScript engine which can be embedded in your application CsSql SQLite, PostGRES, MySQL, etc CsSvg Renderer, Widget CsWebKit Web View, Web Page CsXml DOM, Reader CsXmlPatterns Schema, Xml Query

Meta-Object Compiler ( moc ) The Meta-Object Compiler is no longer required for generating reflection meta data in CopperSpice Since moc is no longer required it was completely removed All functionality originally provided by moc was replaced with compile time templates CopperSpice automatically generates meta data for processing Signals/Slots and Introspection A template class can now inherit from QObject with no restrictions on data types Complex data types can be used as a signal or slot argument, for example this is valid in CopperSpice: QMap<QString, int> Removal of moc simplifies the build process

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Benefits of CopperSpice Extensive use of modern C++ functionality templates, variadic templates, lambdas expression SFINAE move semantics, rvalue references constexpr, constexpr if decltype, type traits, tuple, override strongly typed enums threading model Redesigned all container classes Composition is used to wrap the C++ standard library containers QVector, QList, QStringList, QLinkedList, QSet, QStack, QQueue QMap, QHash, QMultiMap, QMultiHash Supports both the STL and Qt API Implement QMultiHash and QMultiMap as separate classes from QHash and QMap Reverse iterators Removed copy on write semantics Added QFlatMap Ordered map which stores elements in contiguous memory as a sorted vector of pairs Similar API to QMap

CopperSpice includes a majority of the Qt 5 classes Improve CsNetwork, supports OpenSSL 1.0.x and 1.1.x Support for TLS and SPDY added Add support for SHA-2 and SHA-3 Reimplemented atomic support (QAtomicInt, QAtomicPointer) wrapping the C++ standard library functionality Enhanced CopperSpice to use STL algorithms rather than hand rolled algorithms Removed support for obsolete platforms QLocale classes refactored to use UTF-8 string classes Update codec classes using UTF-8 strings High DPI support Moved to Unicode 11, migrate to Harfbuzz 2.x for text shaping Improved platform specific support Redesign plugin system QVariant system, full overhaul removing unions in favor of type safe C++ constructs

Integration of CsSignal Improved thread aware Signal/Slot delivery Increased efficiency while maintaining the full Signal/Slot API Deadlocks in Signal/Slot processing have been eliminated Integration of CsString Change storage to properly represent Unicode strings Added new QString8 (UTF-8) and QString16 (UTF-16) classes QString is synonymous with QString8 Create QStringParser class for string formatting methods Redesign QRegularExpression class using iterators internally to handle UTF-8 and UTF-16 Add QStringView class which provides a view of a QString Remove all string surrogate checking since it is not required with UTF-8 or UTF-16 encoding

Building CopperSpice libraries are built using modern CMake syntax C++ applications using CopperSpice can be built with CMake or any other build system of your choice



BSD Libraries

CsPaint is a library which provides a higher level API for 3D, 2D, and text rendering on the GPU using the Vulkan graphics API

is a library which provides a higher level API for 3D, 2D, and text rendering on the GPU using the Vulkan graphics API CsSignal is a library for thread aware Signal/Slot delivery. It is used by CopperSpice for efficiency while maintaining the full API.

is a library for thread aware Signal/Slot delivery. It is used by CopperSpice for efficiency while maintaining the full API. CsString is a Unicode aware string library. It is used by CopperSpice to support UTF-8 (QString8) and UTF-16. (QString16)

is a Unicode aware string library. It is used by CopperSpice to support UTF-8 (QString8) and UTF-16. (QString16) CsLibGuarded encapsulates a mutex with the corresponding data. There are several different classes available to support multi-threading allowing developers to choose the most appropriate solution. This library is used by the CsSignal library and CopperSpice.

For more information refer to our presentations from CppNow, CppCon, and our YouTube videos. Presentations

Converting to CopperSpice

The process of converting to CopperSpice is straight forward and the team is available for assistance. Simply convert your Qt application header files one time using our PepperMill utility. The Makefiles from our demo program KitchenSink, DoxyPress,or and the Diamond Editor applications can be used as a guide to create your project files.

Getting Started

The CS Overview documentation includes information about how to build CopperSpice from source, where to download prebuilt binary files, setting up a project using CopperSpice, and how to migrate from Qt to CopperSpice. CS Overview Documentation

Contacting CopperSpice