Ubuntu SDK IDE and DevKit Officially Released for Ubuntu 16.04, Built on Qt 5.6

Canonical's Zoltán Balogh is proud to announce the availability of the new Ubuntu SDK IDE and Devkit packages for the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system, due for release on April 21, 2016.

Built on Qt 5.6.0 and based on Qt Creator 3.5.1, the new Ubuntu SDK IDE and Devkit packages come with a great set of new features. Among them, we can mention the ability to detect ARM64 (AArch64) devices, support for migrating templates to UITK (UI Toolkit) 1.3, as well as the upgrade of the Ubuntu Desktop Kit to the APIs of the OTA-11 update for Ubuntu Touch mobile OS.

Moreover, it is now possible to enable the distribution of the Ubuntu SDK IDE and DevKit packages in the "snap" and "click" formats, and there is also the ability to adjust the HTML5 template to mirror the QML sample application. The UI Toolkit (UITK) component gallery has been improved, and it should work as expected now (available from Tools -> Ubuntu -> Showcase Gallery).

Continuing, it looks like the new Ubuntu SDK version removes the qmlproject wizard because it has been declared deprecated and of no use. Moreover, it lets developers execute custom runners on their Ubuntu phones and fixes the "Manifest changes are not saved before publishing regardless of setting" and "Please attach your device - which one?" issues.

"The Ubuntu Desktop Kit does not contain the complete platform API set. It does contain a lot, but not those what would depend on system services. The Ubuntu Desktop Kit is mostly for UI prototyping with the latest UI ToolKit release," said Zoltán Balogh, Engineering Manager, Canonical. "With the LXD container this issue will be gone as the container will function as fully licensed build and runtime environment."

What's coming soon to Ubuntu SDK

In the coming days, the Ubuntu SDK team will prepare a small point release promising to add a new welcome screen, which provides users with direct access to the UI Toolkit showcase gallery, as well as a fully functional desktop kit targeted at click packaged (ARMHf) pocket desktop IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

To consume the new release of Ubuntu SDK IDE and DevKit right now on your Ubuntu Linux operating system, you need to follow the instructions provided by Canonical at https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/platform/sdk/installing-the-sdk/ and then run the command below in the Terminal app.