USB Programming with Qt

Question

Is there anyway I can do USB programming in Qt? I am using Qt Creator 2.6 which is based on Qt version 5.0.0 and it is the latest Qt Creator which works with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 compiler.

I have the toy called "Dreamcheeky Thunder Missile Launcher" and I need to program this USB based device.

I have tried LibUSB but it messed up everything. It even renamed the device port and I had to undo everything using USBDview software. But I guess I installed it incorrectly. I followed these instructions. It is instructions for 64 bit, but I got 32 bit and since the instructions seems not to have big difference (instead the download file) I followed it. This is what I downloaded - libusb-win32-bin-1.2.6.0.zip

Whatever the API you recommend it doesn't matter, even libusb, but please be kind enough to tell me how to install it properly.

My OS is windows 7 ultimate 32 bit.

Answer 1

There's another good instruction for libusb here: http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/148707-introduction-to-using-libusb-10/

• libusb:
  • libusb
  • libusb-win32 (windows port - use this on windows!)

If you stay on windows you can use

• WinUSB:
  • WinUSB API
  • Example
  • Installation

For windows you can use both, but if your program has to be cross-platform you should use libusb.

Answer 2

ollo's answer is out of date. TL;DR is use libusb.info. A bit of explanation:

Originally there was libusb-0.1. Later they updated the API to libusb-1.0, but since libusb-0.1 had been around so long many projects didn't bother switching (kind of like Python 2/3). libusb-0.1 was not available for Windows, but libusb-1.0 is now available for all major platforms.

libusb-win32 is a port of libusb-0.1 to Windows. You shouldn't use it for new code.

libusb.org is the old website for libusb. The latest release is from 2012 and there are no Windows downloads.

libusb.info is the current website for libusb. It contains libusb-1.0 downloads for all platforms and you should use this for new code.

To further confuse things, the sourceforge libusb-win32 mailing list is still used for libusb.info's development.