Running LittlevGL PC Simulator from Qt-Creator in Windows

Qt-Creator is a powerful IDE and is easy manage non Qt project too. With the latest release Qt 5.12.0, GCC x64 compiler, Windows is also supported. This is a step by step tutorial

• to run LittlevGL PC simulator
• in Windows 10
• from Qt-Creator 4.8.0
• with Mingw 64 bit compiler.

Requirements

• Qt-Creator and Mingw-64bit environment. Refer to https://www.qt.io/ to install the open source version of Qt environment.
• SDL2 developement libraries for mingw: https://www.libsdl.org/download-2.0.php
• LittlevGL PC Simulator: https://littlevgl.com/pc-simulator

Copy SDL2 libraries

• In pc_simulator folder create a subfolder named SDL2.
• Copy sdl header files there.
• Create SDL2/lib subfolder and copy libraries for i686-w64 from SDL2 package.

Settin up Qt-Creator project

• Open Qt-Creator
• from file menu select new file or project.
  • in the form select non-Qt-project and plain C application. Press choose button.

• in the project management form:
  • location: select project directory location and type a project name (ex. : pc_sim). press next button.
  • build system: select qmake. press next button.
  • kits: select Mingw 64-bit. press next button.
  • summary: press finish button.

A new subfolder is created with pc_sim.pro, pc_sim.pro.user and main.c template.

• close project from Qt-Creator.
• move pc_sim.pro, pc_sim.pro.user to main directory. remove pc_sim subfolder.
• from Qt-Creator: open project pc_sim.pro. Edit file pc_sim.pro and remove this two lines:

  SOURCES += \
        main.c
  

• save project
• in projects pane: right click on pc_sim project and select Add Existing Directory from menu.

All sources files and includes should be already selected by default.

• from file list: deselect folder lv_examples and SDL2. Then add only .c and .h files from folder lv_examples/demo.

• edit pc_sim.pro and add this lines to add SDL2 library and includes to the project:

  LIBS += -L$$PWD/SDL2/lib/ -lmingw32 -lSDL2main -lSDL2
  
  INCLUDEPATH += $$PWD/SDL2
  DEPENDPATH += $$PWD/SDL2
  

• Save project.

Build and Run the project

• Select release build from left panel icon.

• Run demo

Qt-Creator is available also for Linux and MACOS. Adapting LittlevGL PC Simulator project on these OS should be simple. The complete project is available at this Github link: https://github.com/ScarsFun/pc_simulator