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 = "0.2.5"

Features

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

Enable features:

[dependencies]
qtrs = { version = "0.2.5", 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	—
FileDialog	QFileDialog	open_file, save_file, select_directory (static)
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 qmake to locate them. If you see Qt not found!, 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;

pub use conn::ConnectExt;

pub use conn::ConnType;

pub use conn::SignalMeta;

pub use conn::SlotMeta;

pub use filedialog::FileDialog;

pub use point::Point;

Modules

app

Qt application singleton.

button

Push-button widget with click callbacks.

checkbox

Checkbox widget with toggle callback.

combobox

Drop-down combo box widget.

conn

Type-safe signal-slot connection API

dialog

Standard dialog boxes (QMessageBox convenience wrappers).

ffi

filedialog

File dialog for opening and saving files.

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.

point

2D point representation for widget positioning.

prelude

Prelude: commonly used types and traits.

progressbar

Progress bar widget.

radiobutton

Radio button widget.

signals

Compile-time signal and slot identifiers

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.