Windows: Installing qwt library

Qwt is a Qt based library that extends the Qt API with plotting capabilities.

Installation

 I'm assuming you have already installed MinGW (GCC compiler) and the Qt library, if you haven't then check this post.

Next you'll need to add the MinGW binaries to the PATH environment variable, if you haven't done so. If you don't know how to edit environment variables, check this post.

Append "C:\mingw\bin" (use the correct directory path) to the PATH variable.

Append "C:\Qt\4.8.3\bin" to the PATH variable.

Grab the latest qwt source (zip version) from here.

Unzip the zip file, go inside the qwt folder and open the qwtconfig.pri file with a text editor.

Comment (i.e. add a '#' character to the leftmost side) the following line:

QWT_CONFIG     += QwtDesigner

Save and close the .pri file.

Now open a command line window and type the following commands:

cd C:\path\to\downloaded\qwt
qmake
make
make install

Note: Instead of  "C:\path\to\downloaded\qwt" use the correct path like "C:\Users\Jorge\Downloads\qwt-6.0.1"

A new folder will be created in the C:\ drive named qwt-6.0.1 or similar.

The final step is updating the environment variables, if you don't know/remember how check this post.

Append "C:\qwt-6.0.1\include" to CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH
Append "C:\qwt-6.0.1\lib" to LIBRARY_PATH

Note:  You won't be able to see the qwt widgets in Qt designer with these installation steps. I haven't figured out yet how to enable that.

How to use qwt

Create a new Qt project in Qt creator, and add to the .pro file the next line:

Linking qwt library

Next, you'll need the library header files, all of them start with "qwt_". Add them where necessary as shown in the next image:

Including qwt header files.

Simple test

Let's do a very simple test and see if everything has been installed correctly. In your mainwindow.cpp source file type the next code:

Simple test source code.

Then run it, and you should see the following output.

Simple test output.

Other Examples

For more elaborated examples check qSerialTerm and ImageQ.

 ImageQ in Windows. Histogram was plotted using QwtPlot.