DeployQt4 will take an executable and any specified Qt plugins and install and setup all the linked dependencies.

DeployQt4 does this by using e.g. otool, ldd or depends.exe to find the linked libraries, installing a qt.conf file (if needed) to ensure the correct Qt is used and install any specified Qt plugins to the default Qt application plugin path. On OSX it will also use install_name_tool to make sure your application is linked directly to the libraries inside its bundle.

For example an OSX application bundle before DeployQt4 might look like:

and afterwards like:

The most commonly used DeployQt4 function is INSTALL_QT4_EXECUTABLE function. For example:
INSTALL_QT4_EXECUTABLE(${EXECUTABLE_PATH} qsqlite)

If you wanted to do this in a CMake script rather than at install time (i.e. for an already compiled executable) you could instead call:
FIXUP_QT4_EXECUTABLE(${EXECUTABLE_PATH} qsqlite)

Other DeployQt4 options include manually specifying libraries or non-Qt plugins to install their linked dependencies, additional directories to check for linked dependencies (the Qt directories are added by default), override the default plugin installation directory, override whether a qt.conf file is installed and the use of CMake INSTALL components.

You can see an example of using DeployQt4 (combined with CPack to generate installers) in the CMakeLists.txt file for my Fabula project.

For more information read the DeployQt4 section of the official CMake documentation, read the DeployQt4 source code or post a question in the comments.

If you want the same functionality for non-Qt projects I suggest you investigate the BundleUtilities module in CMake. Despite the confusing name this installs linked dependencies on Windows, Mac and Linux. DeployQt4 extends this functionality to improve the API and add some Qt-specific deployment help.

If you want the same functionality for Mac-only non-CMake projects I suggest you investigate the Mac deployment tool (macdeployqt) that is bundled with Qt. It lacks the DeployQt4 added features of automatic installation of any linked dependencies, CMake/CPack integration and support for Windows and Linux but will install the Qt libraries correctly.

By default there is a problem with QGtkStyle which stops it correctly picking up the GTK theme as XFCE does not save it in the usual place.

To fix this we can use a simple script:

#!/bin/sh
DEFAULT_XFCE_THEME=greybird
XFCE_THEME=$(xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Net/ThemeName 2>/dev/null)
GTK2_RC_FILES=$HOME/.config/xfce4/gtkrc
[ -z "$XFCE_THEME" ] && XFCE_THEME=$DEFAULT_XFCE_THEME
echo gtk-theme-name = $XFCE_THEME > $GTK2_RC_FILES
unset DEFAULT_XFCE_THEME
unset XFCE_THEME
export GTK2_RC_FILES
. /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc

Put this script into $HOME/.config/xfce4/xinitrc and ensure it is executable by running chmod +x $HOME/.config/xfce4/xinitrc.

It’s hard to forget quite the level of betrayal I felt over the pledge-breaking tuition fees vote (admittedly one that does not affect us in Scotland). They signed a single campaign pledge in front of invited media attention, waved around that pledge all through that campaign, used it to court the student and academic vote by signing this pledge on a policy they had already supported for years. Unsurprising, their supporters didn’t take too kindly towards them not voting against, not abstaining, not quietly supporting but actively promoting the breaking of their pledge as something good for the country. This made me not want to vote Lib Dem for 10 years (if not more). People may accuse me (and others) of focusing on a single issue but, then again, the Lib Dems were practically doing that too.

Is it better for them to be in coalition than not in government? The political types and within their own party said it was. The voters have shown them in the Scottish and council elections that it was not. Many (former) members of the party are so fundamentally opposed to these cuts that the Lib Dem “moderating influence” and “compromises” feel like a “compromise” of supplying wine rather than vodka to an alcoholic bent on self-destruction (in this case, the Conservatives are bent on destruction of our public sector). The Lib Dems could have blocked these cuts. Instead all their principles seem to have been sold down the river in favour of an AV vote which has dramatically failed. Nice work Clegg (and the Lib Dem leadership); you’ve killed the party, possibly killed any chance at Commons voting reform, saddled the next generation of students with huge amounts of debt and been narrowly stopped in your first steps in privatising the NHS.

I honestly think the best thing now is to let the Conservatives form a minority government and support them on an issue-to-issue basis. They’ve hung the Lib Dems out to dry in English council elections and with the AV vote. This won’t happen, however. Power corrupts and the Lib Dem leadership will remain in denial until they are absolutely destroyed at the next election and wonder out loud where it all went wrong whilst their former members roll their eyes.

I think they underestimated the sheer extent to which the electorate would care about their pledge breaking. In my (limited) experience the majority of left-leaning voters were split into Lib Dems and Labour and (very generally) the prior have seemed to be more likely to be university educated and the latter (again, very generally) more likely to be working class. Unsurprisingly, academics, students and former graduates who value social mobility view an affordable university education as being somewhat important.

I’d found myself in a situation where I felt I could no longer support the Lib Dems so who to vote for in the Scottish elections? Obviously Conservatives were out so I was (limiting myself to somewhat major parties) choosing between the Greens, SNP and Labour. Labour’s campaign in the run up to the election was a farce. They seemed to focus on entirely why I shouldn’t vote for the SNP and gave me very little reason to vote for them (this is probably why the party leader only held onto his seat by 151 votes) and seemed further right of SNP and Greens with regards to renewable energy and certainly the Westminster party is more in favour with regards to foreign military intervention. This left me with two parties who both supported an independence referendum, both supported renewable investment but only one with a change of winning in my region or constituency (even my MP is an SNP, amusingly married to my MSP).

After voting SNP (choosing over Greens fairly late in the day) I was fairly overjoyed to see Scotland turn yellow on the electoral maps yesterday. We saw them make terrific gains and almost doubling their vote and meeting the magic 65 MSPs needed for a majority to finish with 69. This means they have their chance to show the Scottish electorate what they can do without needing cross-party support. Their last minority administration had very little power to institute any real change with this cross-party support and was denied their independence referendum as a result. The referendum is now on the cards in their next term and will begin a debate far more dramatic and interesting than that of AV or arguably even the Westminster elections: do the Scottish people want an independent Scotland? I do and I’ll elaborate on why in a future post. For now I’m just content with the first good election result since I’ve been able to vote.

None of these were actually released in 2010 but they were my soundtrack to the year. The album titles link to Spotify or another location to listen online (where available).

Paradise Lost (Symphony X, 2007)

Based around John Milton’s poem of the same name, this was the first Symphony X album that has really grabbed me. I found their previous work filled with too much shred and not enough melody. That’s not to say the shredding here isn’t as crunchy and technically fantastic (Michael Romeo on excellent form) but here it ties a bit better into a cohesive album structure and helps to elevate songs rather than distracting from them. My highlight is probably the title track which with Russel Allen demonstrating his voice sounds even better when he isn’t thrashing it.

Music Of The Spheres (Mike Oldfield, 2008)

The Songs Of Distant Earth is one of my favourite instrumental albums so I was interested to find out what Oldfield would produce when given a full orchestra to play with. The result is a beautiful and at times haunting album that doesn’t try to do too much. I’m no classical connoisseur but enjoyed this more than most classic music I’ve heard in years. Oldfield’s compositions bring me to a peaceful place and help me focus on higher things than the busyness of my day.

A Tribute to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Rewiring Genesis, 2008)

I’m pretty skeptical about cover versions of songs and incredibly skeptical of projects like this that rerecord an existing album, particularly one I’m already a huge fan of. Something about Nick D’Virgillio’s varied vocals and the strange but brilliant addition of a horn section actually help to remind me what I loved to much about the original Lamb and produce one a re-imagining of an album I thought impossible to change without ruining.

Wallstreet Voodoo (Roine Stolt, 2005)

This has been a year I’ve found myself pulled further into politics and examining the global recession and this album has been a soundtrack to that process. Released two years before the banking system started spiralling down the toilet some of the lyrics seem sadly prescient of what would occur. Neal Morse’s addition and the bluesy feel add variation to what would have already been an interesting album.

On This Perfect Day (Guilt Machine, 2009)

Most progressive rock I listen to is accused of being overcomplex and unemotional but anyone would struggle to say the same about Guilt Machine. This Arjen Anthony Lucassen side-project about the psychology of guilt found him and his current girlfriend (and lead guitarist on the album) creating something deeply personal about struggles they’ve overcome. I didn’t find it instantly accessible but the sheer passion and emotion that emerges from the album make it truly brilliant.

Calling All Dawns (Christopher Tin, 2009)

I found Christopher Tin through his writing of the menu track in Civilisation 4, a beautiful version of The Lord’s Prayer performed in Swahili by a gospel choir. The album tracks the changing periods of a day and each song is sung in a different language. I’m not normally into classical music but was entranced by the contrast between the tracks links and their impressive variety.

Black Clouds and Silver Linings (Dream Theater, 2009)

I’ve been somewhat unimpressed with everything Dream Theater has done since Metropolis Part 2. There has been a few good tracks here and there, a few good riffs but it has just felt like the emotion and melody gave way to influences by boring metal. This album was a refreshing return to form with a variety that hasn’t been seen in an album other than Metropolis Part 2. The Count of Tuscany has an fantastic opening section where Petrucci manages to create something far prettier than he has in a long time by keeping his riffs simple and The Shattered Fortress brings a heavy but emotional conclusion to Portnoy’s Alcoholics Anoymous-themed suite. Sadly, Portnoy has now left the band so Dream Theater’s future is looking uncertain but I’m glad they got to release such a great album before that happened.

The Human Equation (Ayreon, 2004)

Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s main project Ayreon is an awesome set of concept albums that have an overarching crazy science fiction plot and feature many guest instrumentalists and vocalists. The Human Equation is a bit different as it focuses on a man reliving his life in a whilst in a coma and tracks him through his various emotional states. James LaBrie from Dream Theater provides the main vocals and we see his character regret and eventually come to terms with his life before awakening. As with Guilt Machine I was drawn more to this album by the emotional connection with the characters and writers than Ayreon’s other work and even although this album does not feature my favourite Ayreon riffs or songs I feel it’s probably the best released so far.

Space Metal (Star One, 2002)

Yet another Arjen Anthony Lucassen side project, I listened to this album a lot on Spotify before eventually buying the CD for £40 (as it was out of print) which illustrates how much I loved this. It’s heavily influenced by 70s and 80s Space Metal (hence the name) and is a lot more mainstream rock than the other prog here. The songs are each themed on a science fiction movie and stand alone so this is a concept album but without any linking between songs. This album has so many fantastic riffs and choruses that you can’t help but sing along (or at least try, I’m not exactly operatic). As a lover of pretty much everything Lucassen does it’s nice to see him write great songs rather than a great album and feature a consistent band between tracks. The 2010 followup Victims of the Modern Age is also very good but was released so late last year that it didn’t feel like it should quite make last year’s top 10.

The Whirlwind (Transatlantic, 2009)

When I heard Transatlantic were recording a new album I was beyond excited. Pete Trewavas, Mike Portnoy, Neal Morse and Roine Stolt are all great musicians in their own right whose contributions to their own bands are irreplaceable but it’s with Translatlantic they excel. There is a real sense of humility here, each musician allowing the space for everyone to get their centre stage moments but also coming together to produce incredible vocal and instrumental harmonies. The entire album is meant to be listened as a single continuous song and it really rewards the listener who does so; themes and riffs fade in and out, bringing almost instant familiarity. I was also lucky enough to see them live in London last year and they are as fantastic live as they are recorded.

A friend sent me a link to an interesting review that I was writing a long response to but thought I’d turn it into a blog post instead. The review is fantastically written by Zadie Smith but there’s a few glaring holes in it that frustrated this post into existence.

Smith, like many mainstream journalists and writers, seems to fundamentally understand what makes people like us excited about programming. I’ll respond to some choice quotes from the review.

No doubt the filmmakers considered this option, but you can see their dilemma: how to convey the pleasure of programming—if such a pleasure exists—in a way that is both cinematic and comprehensible?

If such a pleasure exists? Really? She mentions in the review she talked to a “software expert” but she must have avoided this topic of discussion. The pleasure in coding combines creativity (like creating art, no-one will ever write a program the same way as you), building to try to simplify the lives of others and mathematical problem solving. I think the film communicates this fairly well but it’s one of these things that’s pretty much impossible to hide the elements of programming that immediately turn some people off it. Some people find the idea that I sit at my computer typing for most of the day fundamentally boring and there’s not much you can do to argue against this viewpoint other than display the great things that can result from it.

E Pluribus Unum—that’s the point. Here’s my guess: he wants to be like everybody else. He wants to be liked.

It’s a shame that for anyone who is or was ever considered “nerdy” that we fall victim to such poor pop psychology. Just because we weren’t all deemed “cool” in high school doesn’t mean our entire careers are driven by this reductionist need to over-compensate for what others thing we missed out on. Zuckerberg I’d imagine, like most software engineers wants to build something that everyone will think “how did I manage before this came along” and, even if they don’t know he made it, he’ll know that he’s simplified the lives of a lot of people. This is why we do it and this is why we love it.

The fact that Zuckerberg open-sourced his earlier applications (not just gave it away for not monetary value, her review misses this) shows this; he values the pleasure of people using his tool over the monetary return that he could have instead. This also points to why Facebook didn’t take the many chances to sell out to large companies earlier in its existence.

I am dreaming of a Web that caters to a kind of person who no longer exists. A private person, a person who is a mystery, to the world and—which is more important—to herself.

The type of web (and person) she mentions already existed and still exists: you can use private email, private Facebook messages, protected Twitter accounts and use other services that guarantee privacy, even relying on end-to-end encryption so only the sender and receiver can see any content. Arguably, this was the first web, the one many of us were using 10 or 15 years ago. The problem is that she fails to see the flip side of her argument: what about those of us who are very public people, how could we share things with the world without relying on a gatekeeper or third-party before the internet and, arguably, before Web 2.0′s concepts became mainstream?

This is why she’s writing her review in the New York Review and not by monetizing a personal blog. She seems to believe in the gatekeeper, the Web 1.0 (or Person 1.0 from her article) and the tight separation of career and personal life, of the private persona that lives their life and the public persona that does their work (or perhaps I’m the one who is spouting pop psychology now).

As said, this was a brilliantly written review even although I disagree with many of the arguments in it. The Social Network (and indeed Facebook itself) is a great advertisement for the beauty and power of software: that someone can produce something that will change the world from their university dorm room with scarce resources, no corporate sponsors, some programming experience and a lot of hard work. It’s the antithesis of programs like X Factor and other reality TV that spouts the lie to society that success comes from being lucky enough to be picked by a corporation and that fame itself is the thing worth striving for.

Start showing films like The Social Network in schools. Get high school kids writing software rather than the letters in Word. Teach them how to write Facebook and mobile applications, programs that they and their friends will use outside of school. Let us, as software engineers, rekindle the passion that got us into this field in the first place and let’s see a return to late-night coding binges and building useful stuff for fun. Let’s see the youth of tomorrow look at our field and think “wow, that’s cool, I want to do that too”.

I was initially pleased to think that the Lib Dems might provide a balancing influence to the Conservatives cuts and that the Conservatives approach to the deficit and cost-cutting was correct. The more I read and observed however the more I realised that looking through Keynesian economics paints another picture from that painted by Cameron and Osbourne. Seemingly overnight Clegg turned from being someone who has loudly condemned the Conservatives cuts to being the very man who has enabled them to happen. I would obviously prefer the current coalition over a Conservative government but, once all the LibDem flag-waving died down, I realised that this was one of three choices (LibLab coalition, LibCon coalition, minority Con government) and, as I see it today, Clegg chose the option I’m least happy with. The emergency budget and hard cuts simply could not have been made with a minority government and I’m not sure this would be a bad thing. After all, all parties seemed to agree cuts needed to be made, it was just a question of where and by how much.

If the massive cuts that are being pushed through cause the double-dip recession or society-breaking effect we all fear then it will hard to not look upon Clegg as similar to the main aspect of Blair I loathe: someone who should have been smart enough to avoid legitimising a horrible destruction of our values (Blair in Iraq, Clegg in the budget).

I’m glad the next election won’t be for quite a while as I’m currently conflicted about my Liberal Democrats membership. I doubt I will be renewing my membership this year and my vote could be anywhere from Labour (if Ed Miliband pulls the party left-ward) to the SNP (I believe an independent Scotland would be a more liberal one) to returning to the Lib Dems (if they manage to get some form of PR and the budget doesn’t decimate the services for the needy in society) in the next UK election.

I’m left with the increasing temptation toward apathy. The election was so frustrating in so many ways, particularly that no seat in Scotland changed hands and that the Lib Dems failed to turn brilliant results in the polls into actual parliamentary seats. However, if nothing else, hopefully this coalition signals an end of the Labour-Conservative back-and-forth that we’ve seen for all to long. I think the worse political situation for a country is the US-style two party system where you’re screwed if both parties agree on an issue and you don’t.

I live in hope that people like Johann Hari and the Labour leadership are proved wrong and the coalition don’t inflict huge wounds on our society. For the moment, hoping and staying aware seems all that can really be done.

I’m a software engineer and I like writing code. I don’t mind doing sysadmin, I did it at my previous employer and do it on this server but my main love with computers will always be programming. Moving to OSX gave me a system that “Just Works” and resulted in me having more time to work on interesting coding projects and wasting less time trying to make my computer do what it is meant to.

I think the reason people become so passionate about Apple’s products is that they really focus on not bothering the user unless they have to through making sensible design decisions rather than worrying about edge cases (an unfortunate affliction for software engineers). A great example of this is the suspend behaviour. Firstly, suspend and resume on Mac is 100% reliable, I’ve never had my machine not come up after suspending. It’s quick, it occurs on you putting the lid down and it quickly becomes second nature to do so. Another great example of Apple’s design focus is what happens when your battery runs out after you’ve already put your lid down and suspended (UPDATE: This feature is know as Safe Sleep and combines hibernate and sleep. This is possible on Linux but isn’t default on any distribution I’ve ever used). On Windows (on older versions at least, haven’t tested this on 7) and on Linux: sucks, you shouldn’t have let your battery run out, you’ve lost all your work. On OSX: it hibernates automatically some time before the battery runs out so your work is saved.

I explained this to my wife and she asked “Why doesn’t everyone do it that way?”. I didn’t know. I suspect because it’s a hard problem and it doesn’t affect many people. The problem is that, although an edge case, when it does affect you it’s mindblowingly frustrating. When I use an Apple product it feels like they care about you enjoying your experience. They care if you lose work so they try and stop you doing so. On Linux, it just felt that whatever went wrong it was my fault for not RTFM. This came across from the OS itself and the developers and users I would ask for help.

Even if you use Linux or Windows, I encourage you to be influenced by Apple when you design your software: do the most sensible thing for the user at all times and don’t bother them. Don’t worry so much about edge cases and just try and transparently help the user without bothering them. This is why people pay a premium for Apple products. Better to make something that’s great at doing a few things in a way the user will love than possible to do everything if the user tries hard enough.

UPDATE: I didn’t mention the distribution I’ve used because the above applied to every one I had used at the stage I left. Even on well supported Dell hardware (Latitude D620) I never had 100% reliable suspend on Fedora, Debian, Kubuntu, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux or Gentoo. I bought the laptop for Linux as a friend had a Macbook; it was really well supported and worked great and he’s a kernel hacker so I thought it was a good bet. Turns out the newer version I bought had the above mentioned kernel bugs causing only one core to be usable (ACPI bug).

I’ve managed to emulate this functionality in Windows by using the login scripts. This script should work in Windows 2000 or any later version but the setup instructions may vary.

• Create a file named LockWorkStation.vbs with the contents: WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Run("rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation")
• Access the hidden Advanced Users Control Panel by running “control.exe userpasswords2” from a Run dialog or command prompt.
• In the “Users” tab, uncheck “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer”.
• UPDATE: Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows XP Home Edition don’t come with the necessary group policy editor so you can either Google for ways of using gpedit.msc (either downloading the needed files or editing the registry manually) or just put the above script in your Startup folder. The latter option will be less secure as someone could get access to your machine after the desktop loads but before the script does but it will still work.
• In the “Advanced” tab under “Advanced user management” click “Advanced”.
• Click “Users” in the left-hand pane of the “Local Users and Groups” window, right-click on the user you want to autologin from the right-hand pane and select “Properties”.
• In the “Profile” tab, enter “LockWorkstation.vbs” in the “Logon script:” box..
• Create a folder somewhere on disk (I recommend My Documents/Scripts) that you want to store the script in.
• Right-click on the folder and select “Properties”. From the “Sharing” tab, click “Advanced Sharing…”.
• Check “Share this folder” and enter “NetLogon” in the “Share name” box. Set the number of simultaneous users to 1.
• Click “Permissions” and ensure you are the only user listed and you have only “Read” access enabled.

You’re now done. When you next log in, you shouldn’t see the desktop at all (or incredibly briefly) and the screen should lock immediately and require your password to unlock while all your stuff happily loads in the background.

UPDATE: This was posted on Lifehacker and they made a video walkthrough for this post:

Our wedding was absolutely amazing! It was a lovely and meaningful church service followed by a party with all of our best friends and family. We have so many people to thank for making it such a lovely day, far too many to name here. If you’re planning a wedding, I recommend Gareth Saunders (who married us) Teannaich (our ceilidh band) and Benjamin Arthur (who took our photographs). (which came out amazingly and you can see here: ). I can’t recommend Benjamin highly enough; if you’re looking for a wedding photographer, hire him! You can see the photographs from our wedding and some of his other work at his Picasa Web Albums page.

The more astute among you may have noticed that this site has changed from mikearthur.co.uk to mikemcquaid.com. This is due to my getting married in May and taking my wife’s surname.

I came up with the idea of changing due to a bunch of reasons that included my recent feminist awakenings causing my displeasure at the history of women taking their husband’s names and family who would keep on the Arthur name.

Interestingly, the process for a husband taking his wife’s name isn’t all that different; I simply needed to pay a small sum and provide documentation to the UK Deed Poll Service who then provided me with paperwork to sign and get countersigned. Legally, I can call myself whatever I like at any time and that is my name but this Deed Poll is required to provide some sort of formal documentation where the bride would normally provide a Marriage Certificate with her new name signed on it.

Today I received my new passport, pretty much the last piece of identification I’ve had to get changed. Every service I use now recognises me as Mike McQuaid, both online and offline. It is interesting how easy it was to do most of this. Most people assured me it would be much harder as a man but it’s all been very straightforward. My only remaining grumbles are online services that don’t allow you to change your username such as Steam and Last.fm where my username remains “mikearthur”, although my profile name is updated.