KDAB TV celebrates its first year

28.10.2020 Frances Tait No comments

A year ago KDAB started a YouTube channel dedicated to software development with Qt, C++ and 3D technologies like OpenGL. We talked to Sabine Faure, who is in charge of the program, about how it worked out so far and what we can expect in the future.

What was the idea behind the KDAB video channel?

KDAB has a long history in sharing knowledge and best practices with the community, be it on our website, in blog posts, presentations or other publications. As video became an increasingly popular medium for our audience, we decided to add it to our portfolio of useful developer resources.

This month KDAB TV passes the one year mark. Looking back what has changed?

We started the video program with an Introduction to Qt / QML series.

At the time, content was filmed in a studio with Reflex cameras. Since the end of February 2020 this became no longer possible, of course, due to the Covid-19 situation. In order to meet our target to release relevant high-quality content every week, we had to find alternative ways to produce them. I am happy to say that we found a way to record our videos with home-based webcams without letting go of our high standards.

Another challenge has been the move to online events. KDAB hosted Qt Desktop Days in September, and the talks were recorded via Big Blue Button, which was totally new for us. We are very happy with our recordings from this event, all of which will soon be online.

So what’s your conclusion after the first year?

With over 90 videos released and over 180,000 views, I can say that the channel seems to meet the interests of our audience. We have had overwhelmingly positive and thankful feedback. That is a wonderful confirmation and gives us confidence to keep up our efforts. Certainly, we are happy about any suggestions for topics or improvement. We hope people will feel free to send feedback to info@kdab.com or post a comment below any of the videos.

So what is coming next?

There’s certainly no lack of interesting topics. Our aim is to build a platform with useful content for the developer community. We try to pick topics that are both for beginners and advanced developers and that are of a general interest. Shortly, more Introduction to Qt / QML videos will be coming out (3 modules left). If you have started to watch the series, you don’t want to miss them, because they explain how to interface the logic (C++) with the UI (QML). Further down the line there are videos planned on Qt Widgets, Qt6 and what it changes, Profiling and Debugging just to mention a few.

Where can I find all videos released so far?

Just go to KDAB TV and you’ll find them all. But here’s a list of shortcuts to the playlists we have so far:

• Introduction to Qt / QML Tutorials – comprehensive foundations of programming with Qt / QML
• KDAB News – our monthly digest on Qt, 3D, C++ topics
• Showcases – products we’ve developed with Qt for Industrial, Automotive and Medical
• KUESA™ 3D  – KDAB’s unique designer/developer workflow solution
• GammaRay tutorials – Series 1 – an introduction to our Qt application introspection tool
• Qt Widgets and more –  more tips and tricks from Jesper Pedersen
• Qt Desktop Days 2020 – talks from this year’s KDAB-hosted event
• Embedded World 2020 – KDAB demos and impressions from the event
• KDAB videos made before we launched our youtube channel, including tooling, conference talks and much more.