Add cmake building system

[dawkagaming]

Hello,

I had a thought that it may be a good idea to move to CMake instead of Qmake, as I heard that it is the recommended build system for Qt/C++ based project.

It is not yet complete, as I had to figure out how to get the Hamlib version and sqlite3 library finding on Windows needs to be added, also I am not able to test it on MacOS or Windows (I have never developed in Qt on these platforms).

If someone can help, I would be glad to receive assistance!

Thanks,
Dawid Kulas
SP9SKA

[dawkagaming]

Is this hamlib version check actually necessary? Isn't it some old leftover?

[foldynl]

I don’t want to take away your enthusiasm, but this is not just a matter of rewriting qmake to CMake. It also means reviewing all platforms and build environments (Flatpak, DEB, RPM, EXE) and CI/CD pipes to make sure they still work as expected. We also need to keep in mind that we are still building for environments where Qt 5.x is used. So an AI assistant will probably be able to convert qmake to CMake quickly, but most of the work will be in verifying that it actually works across many different environments. And honestly, I don't even know what it's built for, because some packages are released outside of my control.

Personally, I would rather direct the effort into QLog’s source code than into its build process. qmake will stay with us for some time, and only once it becomes a real problem would I start thinking about a migration.

As for the Hamlib version, I need to detect it because there are a few workarounds in the code for things that Hamlib did not implement very well, and some of those depend on the specific version.

[dawkagaming]

Ah okay, I was actully trying to rewrite the file using the .pro file without AI help.

As I said, I don't have a possibility to test it on other platforms than Linux (which I use).

I think I converted most of it properly to cmake, except things I described before.

Adding the Qt5 compatiblity shouldn't be a problem really.

I understand that this is not the focus, I just started learning Cmake and I like it very much, so I am trying to contribute what I know and I am not too good in C++/Qt 😄

Other option is to maintain two build systems for some time, like cmake for linux (because it is much easier) and windows+macos on qmake, as I can test it properly on my machine.