---
title: 3. Writing your first application
layout: docs
---

:doctitle: 3. Writing your first application
:notitle:

== Writing your first application

=== Building the QSkinny repository

In this chapter we will write a simple QSkinny application on Linux from scratch.
As a prerequisite, a recent Qt version (>= 5.6) should be available and the directory of
its `qmake` binary in the current `$PATH`.

Then we can build and install QSkinny to `/opt/qskinny` with the following commands:

[source,xml]
....
cd /home/user/dev/
git clone https://github.com/uwerat/qskinny.git
cd qskinny
PREFIX=/opt/qskinny qmake
make
sudo make install
....

=== Compiling our first app

As a next step, we need to write our app. Let's start with a simple `main.cpp` file in a directory `myapp`:

.main.cpp
[source]
....
#include <QskWindow.h>
#include <QGuiApplication>

int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
    QGuiApplication app( argc, argv );

    QskWindow window;
    window.show();

    return app.exec();
}
....

For now this will just create an empty window (the `QskWindow`) without any controls.
Next, we need to create a `myapp.pro` file in our `myapp` directory.

.myapp.pro
[source,xml]
TEMPLATE = app
TARGET = myapp

QT *= quick

QSK_ROOT=/opt/qskinny

INCLUDEPATH += $${QSK_ROOT}/include 
LIBS += -L$${QSK_ROOT}/lib -lqskinny

QMAKE_RPATHDIR *= $${QSK_ROOT}/lib

SOURCES += \
    main.cpp
....

Now we can compile our app:

[source,xml]
....
cd myapp
qmake
make
....

When running myapp it needs to find the skin plugins. Setting QT_PLUGIN_PATH is one
option ( see https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/deployment-plugins.html ):

[source,xml]
....
QT_PLUGIN_PATH=/opt/qskinny/plugins ./myapp
....

This should show just an empty window.

=== Adding UI controls

Now that we have our app running, we can add some UI controls to it by extending the `main.cpp` file we created earlier. We will add some additional include directives, and then create a horizontal layout containing two push buttons. The layout with the two buttons will be shown in the window. Below is the complete updated source file:

.main.cpp
[source]
....
#include <QskWindow.h>
#include <QskLinearBox.h>
#include <QskPushButton.h>

#include <QGuiApplication>

int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
    QGuiApplication app( argc, argv );

    auto* horizontalBox = new QskLinearBox( Qt::Horizontal );
    auto* button1 = new QskPushButton( "button 1", horizontalBox );
    auto* button2 = new QskPushButton( "button 2", horizontalBox );

    QskWindow window;
    window.addItem( horizontalBox );
    window.show();

    return app.exec();
}
....

Now the app is displaying the two buttons:

image::../images/writing-first-application.png[An app showing two buttons]

That's it; you just created a QSkinny application from scratch.

For information on how the controls and layouts above behave, see the next chapters.