Setup

Install Quarve CLI

cargo install quarve_cli

Additional Setup

Cocoa Backend (macOS)

The default backend on macOS builds is Cocoa. For Cocoa, Quarve works out of the box and you do not have to perform additional setup.

Qt Backend (Windows/Linux/macOS)

The default backend on Windows and Linux builds is Qt, which you will have to install. Optionally for macOS builds, you can request Quarve use Qt instead of Cocoa.

Windows: Install Qt using msvc2022 (make sure you have visual studio installed).

1. Set the environment variable QUARVE_BACKEND_PATH to the root of Qt installation. E.g. C:\Qt\6.8.1\msvc2022_64.
2. Append the binaries folder to your PATH. E.g. C:\Qt\6.8.1\msvc2022_64\bin.

Linux: Install Qt

1. Set the environment variable QUARVE_BACKEND_PATH to the root of Qt installation. E.g. ~/Qt/6.8.1/gcc_64.
2. Append the library folder to to your ePATH. E.g. ~/Qt/6.8.1/gcc_64/bin/

macOS: Install Qt

1. Add the qt_backend feature to quarve.
2. Set the environment variable QUARVE_BACKEND_PATH to the root of Qt installation. E.g. ~/Applications/Qt/6.8.1/macos.
3. Add the following to your build.rs

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
// this is only necessary for local builds
// feel free to disable for release
#[cfg(target_os = "macos")]
{
    let mut qt_path = std::env::var("QUARVE_BACKEND_PATH").unwrap();
    qt_path += "lib/";

    println!("cargo:rustc-link-arg=-Wl,-rpath,{}", qt_path);
}
}

Create new project

quarve new <project_name>

It may be helpful for beginners to include the quarve prelude to access commonly used constants, modules, functions, and traits without having to explicitly import them. This is optional, though.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
use quarve::prelude::*
}

Run project

You can run the project just like any other rust binary, or use the following command:

quarve run
# for workspaces, you may have to explicitly specify the name of the crate
quarve run -n <crate_name>

Deploy Project

Quarve technically has some support of bundling, but it's extremely low so realistically (for now at least) you will have to do a bit of work yourself for final packaging.

quarve deploy
# for workspaces, you may have to explicitly specify the name of the crate
quarve deploy -n <crate_name>

After deploying, a target application will be created in the quarve_target directory.

As of now, we do not know do executable packing so for Windows you will have to do to that yourself (and may want to change directory structure as well).

For Linux, unfortunately all that is done at the moment is creating the directory structure that quarve expects upon installation. It's up to you to create the .deb or .rpm files from here. Important: in your package manager file, make sure to set a dependency for Qt (rpm: qt6-qtbase or deb: qt6-base (>= 6.0)) See rpm tutorial and/or deb tutorial for basics.

For macOS, you may have to update the Info.plist file to e.g. customize the application icon. Depending on your intended distribution style, you may have to codesign the application yourself too.

Debugging

On Linux, if you get the error that <Gl/gl.h> is not found (or something similar), it means that you must install the OpenGL dev kit.