source: trunk/doc/src/deployment.qdoc@ 357

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/*!
    \group deployment
    \title Deploying Qt Applications
    \ingroup buildsystem

    Deploying an Qt application does not require any C++
    programming. All you need to do is to build Qt and your
    application in release mode, following the procedures described in
    this documentation. We will demonstrate the procedures in terms of
    deploying the \l {tools/plugandpaint}{Plug & Paint} application
    that is provided in Qt's examples directory.

    \section1 Static vs. Shared Libraries

    There are two ways of deploying an application:

    \list
        \o Static Linking
        \o Shared Libraries (Frameworks on Mac)
    \endlist

    Static linking results in a stand-alone executable. The advantage
    is that you will only have a few files to deploy. The
    disadvantages are that the executables are large and with no
    flexibility (i.e a new version of the application, or of Qt, will
    require that the deployment process is repeated), and that you
    cannot deploy plugins.

    To deploy plugin-based applications, you can use the shared
    library approach. Shared libraries also provide smaller, more
    flexible executables. For example, using the shared library
    approach, the user is able to independently upgrade the Qt library
    used by the application.

    Another reason why you might want to use the shared library
    approach, is if you want to use the same Qt libraries for a family
    of applications. In fact, if you download the binary installation
    of Qt, you get Qt as a shared library.

    The disadvantage with the shared library approach is that you
    will get more files to deploy. For more information, see
    \l{sharedlibrary.html}{Creating Shared Libraries}.

    \section1 Deploying Qt's Libraries

    \table
    \header
        \o {4,1} Qt's Libraries
    \row
        \o \l {QtAssistant}
        \o \l {QAxContainer}
        \o \l {QAxServer}
        \o \l {QtCore}
    \row
        \o \l {QtDBus}
        \o \l {QtDesigner}
        \o \l {QtGui}
        \o \l {QtHelp}
    \row
        \o \l {QtNetwork}
        \o \l {QtOpenGL}
        \o \l {QtScript}
        \o \l {QtScriptTools}
    \row
        \o \l {QtSql}
        \o \l {QtSvg}
        \o \l {QtWebKit}
        \o \l {QtXml}
    \row
        \o \l {QtXmlPatterns}
        \o \l {Phonon Module}{Phonon}
        \o \l {Qt3Support}
    \endtable

    Since Qt is not a system library, it has to be redistributed along
    with your application; the minimum is to redistribute the run-time
    of the libraries used by the application.  Using static linking,
    however, the Qt run-time is compiled into the executable.

    In particular, you will need to deploy Qt plugins, such as
    JPEG support or SQL drivers. For more information about plugins,
    see the \l {plugins-howto.html}{How to Create Qt Plugins}
    documentation.

    When deploying an application using the shared library approach
    you must ensure that the Qt libraries will use the correct path to
    find the Qt plugins, documentation, translation etc. To do this you