resource converter

Import add-on for Qt Designer.

Contents
Summary
Installation
How to use Knut
Configuration
As of yet unsupported

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Summary

In this section you will learn what Knut can do for you.

in short:

Knut extracts so-called resources (dialoges, icons)
from your MS Windows programs and converts them into Qt Designer *.ui files.

more precisely:

Your MS Windows *.exe and *.dll files will be scanned and every dialoge resource found therein will be extracted and analyzed separately.
While creating an XML file for each dialoge Knut will pass the list of files to Qt Designer using Designer's plug-in interface.
The XML files will be imported by Designer and show up in the same order as the dialoges were stored inside your MS Windows binary.
At this point most of your GUI definition tasks should be done allready, all you might still have to do could be some fine-tuning and (if neccessary) adding those very special, user-defined resources of yours that were not recognized by Knut: their position, size and class as well as their names and their identifiers will be indicated by placeholder symbols for convenience.

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Installation

In this section you will learn how to install Knut and how to plug Knut into Qt Designer.

You may need to be root, depending on the permissions of the directories where you choose to install Knut.

Unpack the source code archive if you have not done so already:

. XX . XX .

Note: This section applies only to the freely available non-commercial version of Knut.
Customers having obtained the commercial version will find the files properly installed
in their respective directories after runing the usual rpm -i ... command.
Of course, customers of the commercial version also have the option of building Knut
from source themselves.

        cd ~
        gunzip knut-version.tar.gz    # uncompress the archive
        tar xf knut-version.tar       # unpack it

Compile the sources and build the binary as usual:

        Linux
        cd knut-version               # directory was created by tar
        qmake knut.pro                # generate all the Makefiles
        make                          # (of course QTDIR must be set)

This creates the Knut plugin file ~/knut-version/build/libknutplugin.so.1.0.0.

Please copy file libknutplugin.so.1.0.0 into directory $QTDIR/plugins/designer/:

        cp build/libknutplugin.so.1.0.0 $QTDIR/plugins/designer/

Knut uses its own shared library which you might want to copy into /usr/lib:

 
 
        cp build/libknut.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib/

or set your PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH

export PATH=~/knut-version/build/:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/knut-version/build/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

        Windows
        cd knut-version               # directory was created by tar
        qmake knut.pro                # generate all the Makefiles
        nmake                          # (of course QTDIR must be set)

This creates the Knut plugin files.

Please copy those files into directory %QTDIR%\plugins\designer\:

        cp C:\knut-version\build\knutplugin.lib knutplugin.dll %QTDIR%\plugins\designer\

Set your PATH variable:

set PATH=C:\knut-version\build\;%PATH%

. XX . XX .

You're done. Knut is now installed.

To perform a little test please act as described in the following section.

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How to use Knut

In this section you will learn how to use the Knut plug-in with Qt Designer.

Usage of Knut is as easy as opening a normal .ui file by File/Open in Qt Designer.

All the scanning, analyzing and converting is done in background - only indicated by a little progress window telling you what is happening.

You start by opening your old file and after a short while end up seeing all your dialoges pop up in Designer's workspace.

To show how Knut works let us pretend you own a self-written Windows program that should be migrated to Linux.
The following screenshot represents an old Windows program - let's just call it CCOffice - you are going to replace by its cute Qt version:

Screenshot of old Windows program

To import the dialoges stored in that old Windows program please perform the following steps:

Fire up your Qt Designer.
Choose File / Open... to see the file selection dialoge.
Open File type: list.
You should be able to see this additional entry: Windows EXE/DLL Files (*.exe *.dll).
Select it with the mouse and find your *.EXE files (or *.DLL files, resp.)
as shown in the following screenshot.

Screenshot of File/Open
dialoge in Qt Designer

While processing the resources stored in your old program Knut will display a status window like this:

Screenshot of Knut while converting
resources.

After Knut has read the resources and converted them into dialog_*.ui files in Designer's XLM file format, you will see the dialoges appearing in your Designer workspace where you may edit/modify/adjust them.

Screenshot of
dialoge that was imported into Qt Designer

NOTE:
Whenever you have modified the imported dialoges you should consider saving the dialog_*.ui files to other names or to another location - just in case you might want to convert your *.EXE file (or *.DLL file, resp.) again.
By doing so you will avoid loosing your changes which will otherwise be overwritten without further notification when you start conversion of the old binary a second time!

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Configuration

In this section you will learn how to configure Knut by specifying command line options and by using a configuration file.

Replacing fonts

Font replacing is defined in the ~/.knutrc configuration file.

By default the 'replace fonts' section in that file looks like this:
```
[replace fonts]
MS Shell Dlg:helvetica:0.8
```
To define additional font replacements you may add more lines immediately under "MS Shell Dlg".

The format of each replacement-line is:
```
original-font-nameCOLONreplacement-font-nameCOLONscaling-factor
```
The scaling factor is important to adjust the run length of fonts when replacing.
When no scaling factor was specified texts most likely will not fit into the spaces reserved for them - neither in horizontal nor in vertical direction.

NOTE: Unknown fonts not mentioned in this file will be replaced
by helvetica and scaled down by 0.8 factor.

User defined controls

User defined controls will be ignored if not declared in the ~/.knutrc configuration file.

By default the 'replace controls' section in this file looks like this:

[replace controls]
BorShade:GROUPBOX
SysListView32:LISTBOX

To define additional control replacements you may add more lines immediately under the "SysListView32" line.

The format is:

user-defined-control-classCOLONreplacement-control-class

The replacement class mentioned on the right side of the colon should be one of these:


      BUTTON   CHECKBOX   GROUPBOX    RADIOBUTTON
      EDIT     EDITLEFT   EDITRIGHT   EDITCENTER
      STATIC   LISTBOX    SCROLLBAR   COMBOBOX

Support for additional control classes will be subject of future Knut releases.

NOTE: User defined controls not mentioned in this file will be replaced by placeholders
to visually indicate that there is something missing. The placeholder will shown the
size and position of the unknown resource and as well as the class name and title.

class: SysAnimation32 title: Animation1

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As of yet unsupported

In this section you will learn about current limitations of Knut and future plans.

Though being very useful already, Knut's capabilities will be enhanced to make the following releases even more compelling.

unsupported resources

Resource types

At the moment Knut converts DIALOG resources and ICONs that are used in these dialoges, support for BITMAPs is scheduled for the near future.

Depending on user demand, processing of other resources (like e.g. the New Dialog or menus) will be considered.
Control classes

In addition to the supported controls there are plans to import the definitions of Tab Pages, but user wishes for other control classes will be taken into account as well.

unsupported file types

Currently Knut is able to import resources stored inside Win32 .exe and .dll files since these are most frequently used binary file formats today.

For the future, we aim at supporting OS/2 and/or Mac binaries - this will be scheduled according to user demand.