Requirements

VLC-Qt can be built with any common compiler (g++, clang, MSVC, MinGW). Build files are generated using CMake (3.0.2 or later).

All stable versions of VLC since 2.1 work with VLC-Qt. Qt 5 (version 5.5 or later recommende) is recommended as Qt 4 support is considered deprecated. Binaries will always be provided for latest Qt version released at the time of release.

Make sure you have git submodules initialised or you may experience build issues.

CMake configuration

There are some specific CMake flags may need:

COVERAGE: generate coverage report, OFF by default
DEBUG_SUFFIX: add debug suffix 'd' to the libraries, ON on Widows, OFF elsewhere
LIBVLC_VERSION: set VLC version you are compiling with to disable unsupported features, should be defined as base 16 integer like 0x020200, defaults to latest stable VLC version
STATIC: build statically, OFF by default

Extra platform specific flags:

WITH_GLES: link OpenGL ES v2 on Windows, OFF by default, only needed for Qt 5.4 and lower (deprecated)
WITH_HOMEBREW: let system know you are using Homebrew provided Qt, OFF by default, macOS only
WITH_X11: link with X11, required by some Linux distributions, OFF by default

Building in separate build directory is recommended. There is a test target to run automatic tests for the library.

Platform specific instructions

macOS

You need to prepare VLC libraries and plugins before building. After cmake run make prepare, then re-run cmake. Build as a normal library or application.

Supported generators are make and ninja. Qt in PATH and VLC in /Applications will be used.

Make example:

 $ export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/Qt/5.6/clang_64/bin
 $ mkdir build
 $ cd build
 $ cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
 $ make prepare
 $ cmake ..
 $ make -j8
 $ make install

Windows

Build as a normal library or application.

Make sure you always use debug libraries with debug build and release libraries with release build after using it in your project.

Supported generators for MSVC are nmake, jom and ninja; for MinGW: mingw32-make and ninja. Run specific Qt shell to select its version. VLC path needs to be specified manually.

Ninja example for MSVC64:

 $ md build
 $ cd build
 $ cmake .. -GNinja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ^
   -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="E:/install/vlc-qt/msvc64" ^
   -DLIBVLC_LIBRARY="E:/vlc/win64/sdk/lib/libvlc.lib" ^
   -DLIBVLCCORE_LIBRARY="E:/vlc/win64/sdk/lib/libvlccore.lib" ^
   -DLIBVLC_INCLUDE_DIR="E:/vlc/win64/sdk/include"
 $ ninja
 $ ninja install

Linux

Install requirements from your distribution's repository. Supported generators are make and ninja.

Make example:

 $ mkdir build
 $ cd build
 $ cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
 $ make -j8
 $ make install