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We're starting to look at porting some of our plugins over from ArcMap to QGIS and we're pretty excited about it.

Currently everything we have is written in C++ so it would be nice to use that on QGIS too.

So far the resources that I've found: Writing C++ Plugins, QGIS Coding and Compilation Guide seem good but they didn't answer my specific questions.

Can C++ plugins be deployed in the plugin store? If so, how do you do this in a multi-platform environment? Is there a cookbook for deploying C++ plugins across platforms?

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It's generally discouraged to write c++ QGIS plugins, for the following reasons:

  • They can't be distributed via the plugin library (only python plugins with no binary dependencies are accepted)
  • The c++ API is not stable between QGIS releases (including point releases), so you need to update and recompile c++ plugins for each QGIS version used. (In contrast, the PyQGIS API is fixed for the duration of a major release. Eg PyQGIS plugins written for QGIS 2.0 should still work under 2.14).
  • Cross compilation of c++ plugins (outside of the main QGIS source tree) is difficult. You'll need a separate build environment for each targeted platform and separate binaries for each.

It's worth noting that even in the QGIS codebase itself there is a strong movement away from c++ plugins to either including code directly within core QGIS or to use of python plugins.

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  • Awesome. This was my impression too after a bit more research. Nice to see it outlined so clearly though.
    – Raychaser
    Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 16:42
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    So here's my suggestion: if it's functionality which you think could be of widespread use, then explore getting those parts merged into the QGIS code. Then port the rest to python. Ie if you've got specific c++ methods for handling geometries, operations etc there's a good chance these could be of value in the main codebase and this would also simplify the porting process somewhat!
    – ndawson
    Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 19:04
  • Good suggestion. Thinking this way is relatively new to us since we've been ESRI / ArcMap / Closed Source developers for a while but I love the idea of giving back. There's a good chance that everything we need is already inside QGIS so python seem like the right way to go for sure.
    – Raychaser
    Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 19:13

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