One caveat to using the latest Xcode version and SDK to build your application is that macOS's system frameworks will sometimes decide whether or not to enable behavior changes based on the SDK you built your application with.įor example, when dark-mode was introduced in macOS 10.14 Mojave, macOS would only treat applications built against the 10.14 SDK as supporting dark-mode, and would leave applications built against earlier SDKs with the default light mode look. Doing so will likely lead to crashes at runtime if the binary is then deployed to a macOS version lower than what Qt expected to run on.įor more information about SDK-based development on macOS, see Apple's developer documentation. Note: You should not lower the deployment target beyond the default value set by Qt. To raise the deployment target with CMake: You only need to raise the deployment target if your own code uses APIs that were added in a macOS version higher than what Qt defaults to, and you are not using checks to guard their use at runtime.

Qt expresses the deployment target via the CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET or QMAKE_MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET variables, which by default is set to the minimum supported deployment target for Qt. If the binary is launched on a macOS version below the deployment target macOS or Qt will give an error message and the application will not run. In theory this would allow running your application on every single macOS version released, but for practical (and technical) reasons there is a lower limit to this range, known as the deployment target of your application. When the binary is run on a macOS version lower than the SDK it was built with, Qt will check at runtime whether or not a platform feature is available before utilizing it. 14.sdk Target Platformsīuilding for macOS utilizes a technique called weak linking that allows you to build your application against the headers and libraries of the latest platform SDK, while still allowing your application to be deployed to macOS versions lower than the SDK version. app /Contents /Developer /Platforms /MacOSX.

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