Opening a Project

Qt Creator stores information that it needs to build projects in a .user file. If Qt Creator cannot find the file when you open an existing project, it prompts you to enter the information. If you created the project by using another Qt Creator instance, Qt Creator asks whether you want to use the old settings. The settings are specific to the development environment, and should not be copied from one environment to another. Therefore, we recommend that you click No and enter the information again in the Project Setup dialog.

The Project Setup dialog displays a list of development environments for target platforms (such as desktop, Maemo devices, and Symbian devices) that are installed on the development PC. Select the Qt versions that you want to use to build the project for each target.

The status New indicates that Qt Creator did not find an existing build for a particular development environment (Qt version) and target. Therefore, Qt Creator starts out from a clean slate, and creates a new build in the directory listed in the Build Directory field. By default, Qt Creator does a shadow build and also creates the directory. However, shadow building is not supported for the Symbian target.

If you have built the project before, Qt Creator can use the existing build configuration to make the exact same build as found in the directory available to Qt Creator. The Status column displays the status Import if Qt creator found an existing build of the project. The status is displayed for each available development environment.

If you know you have a build, but it is not listed, click Import Existing Shadow Build to locate it. Select a directory, and Qt Creator scans it (including subdirectories) for additional builds of the project. Qt Creator adds the found builds to the target list with Import status.

You can edit the build configuration later. For more information, see Editing Build Configurations.

To open a project:

1. Select File > Open File or Project and select the project to open.
2. In the Project Setup dialog, select the Qt versions to use as build targets for your project, and click Next.

   Note: If you have only one development environment installed, this dialog is skipped.

Qt Creator parses all the source files in the project and performs a semantic analysis to build up the information that it needs for functions such as navigation and finding usages. Qt Creator also scans for all include files in your include path recursively, so that it can complete them. Progress bars are displayed during parsing and scanning.