Crate qtrs 

qtrs — Rust-style Qt6 bindings

A type-safe, builder-pattern-driven Qt6 GUI library for Rust. Built on cxx for C++ interop, with RAII memory management, signal/callback bridging, and a fluent builder API.

Installation

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
qtrs = "0.1.0"

Features

• ui — enables .ui file loading via QUiLoader. Requires qt6-tools-dev (Debian) or equivalent.

Enable features:

[dependencies]
qtrs = { version = "0.1.0", features = ["ui"] }

Design principles

• Builder pattern everywhere — chain .title("X").size(800, 600).show()
• RAII cleanup — widgets are automatically deleted on Drop, with parent-child awareness (widgets with a Qt parent skip C++ deletion to avoid double-free).
• Type-safe layout ownership — adding a widget to a layout transfers ownership; the layout drops its children when it goes out of scope.
• Zero-cost signal bridging — Qt signals invoke Rust closures via a single global trampoline; context tokens are plain u64 values.

Architecture

Layer	Crate module	What it does
C++ glue	(internal)	Inline wrappers around Qt6 API
cxx bridge	ffi	Opaque C++ types + extern "C++" signatures
Safe wrappers	app, widget, button, label, input, layout	Builder patterns, RAII, signals
Public API	(this module)	Re-exports of all safe types

Widget gallery

Type	Qt class	Signals
Application	QApplication	—
Widget	QWidget	—
PushButton	QPushButton	on_clicked
Label	QLabel	—
LineEdit	QLineEdit	on_return_pressed
CheckBox	QCheckBox	on_toggled(bool)
ComboBox	QComboBox	on_current_text_changed on_current_index_changed(i32)
TextEdit	QTextEdit	on_text_changed
Slider	QSlider	on_value_changed(i32)
ProgressBar	QProgressBar	—
RadioButton	QRadioButton	on_toggled(bool)
GroupBox	QGroupBox	—
TabWidget	QTabWidget	on_current_changed(i32)
SpinBox	QSpinBox	on_value_changed(i32)
Menu	QMenu	—
MenuBar	QMenuBar	—
Timer	QTimer	on_timeout single_shot(ms, fn)
VBoxLayout	QVBoxLayout	—
HBoxLayout	QHBoxLayout	—
GridLayout	QGridLayout	—
dialog	QMessageBox	information, warning, critical, question

Quick example

use qtrs::prelude::*;

fn main() {
    let app = Application::new();

    let mut window = Widget::new()
        .title("Hello, qtrs!")
        .size(400, 300)
        .build();

    let mut layout = VBoxLayout::with_parent(&window);

    let btn = PushButton::new("Click me")
        .on_clicked(|| println!("clicked!"))
        .build();
    let label = Label::new("Welcome!").build();

    layout.add_widget(Box::new(btn));
    layout.add_widget(Box::new(label));

    window.set_vlayout(layout.layout_ptr());
    window.show();

    app.exec();
}

Thread safety

Qt GUI classes are not thread-safe. All widget creation, mutation, and the event loop must happen on the main thread. This library does not add any synchronisation — you are responsible for staying on the right thread, just as in C++ Qt.

Linking

Qt6 (Core, Gui, Widgets) must be installed with development headers. The build script uses pkg-config to locate them. If you see Qt6 Library is not installed!, install the qt6-base-dev package (or equivalent) for your distribution.

Re-exports

pub use app::Application;

pub use button::PushButton;

pub use checkbox::CheckBox;

pub use combobox::ComboBox;

pub use grid::GridLayout;

pub use input::LineEdit;

pub use label::Label;

pub use layout::AsLayout;

pub use layout::HBoxLayout;

pub use layout::VBoxLayout;

pub use slider::Slider;

pub use textedit::TextEdit;

pub use timer::Timer;

pub use widget::AsWidget;

pub use widget::FoundWidget;

pub use widget::Widget;

pub use widget::WidgetKind;

pub use progressbar::ProgressBar;

pub use radiobutton::RadioButton;

pub use groupbox::GroupBox;

pub use tabwidget::TabWidget;

pub use spinbox::SpinBox;

pub use menu::Menu;

pub use menu::MenuBar;

Modules

app

Qt application singleton.

button

Push-button widget with click callbacks.

checkbox

Checkbox widget with toggle callback.

combobox

Drop-down combo box widget.

dialog

Standard dialog boxes (QMessageBox convenience wrappers).

ffi

grid

Grid layout for arranging widgets in rows and columns.

groupbox

Group box widget.

input

Single-line text input widget.

label

Static text label widget.

layout

Layout managers for arranging widgets.

menu

Menu and menu bar widgets.

prelude

Prelude: commonly used types and traits.

progressbar

Progress bar widget.

radiobutton

Radio button widget.

slider

Slider widget for selecting a value from a range.

spinbox

Spin box widget for integer input.

tabwidget

Tab widget for multi-page interfaces.

textedit

Multi-line text editor widget.

timer

Timer for delayed or periodic callbacks.

widget

Base widget type and the AsWidget trait.