TeamTalk Classic To Qt Migration Guide
Doug Lee
Last Revised July 20, 2024

This document is intended to help users migrate from the TeamTalk Classic client to the Qt (officially pronounced "cute") client. A link to a migration tool, also on this site, is included.

Document revision history:

August 10, 2021

Initial publication.

August 11 through 12, 2021

More features of the Qt client documented.

September 3 and October 12 and 21, 2021 and October, 2023

TeamTalk version numbers and feature comparisons updated.

July 20, 2024

Documented the TeamTalk Qt 5.17 Move Users dialog.

Table of Contents

• A Quick Guide For Migrating From the Classic Client
• Configuring TeamTalk For Accessibility
• Client Differences

A Quick Guide For Migrating From the Classic Client

For those accustomed to the TeamTalk Classic client, these steps and tips should help with migration to the Qt client:

1. Make sure your screen reader is running before you start the Qt client installation.
2. When installing TeamTalk, select "client" or "client and server" but not "classic client for accessibility."
3. If the installer asks for permission to continue because it found existing files, answer Yes.
4. Allow the installer to launch the Qt client, or launch it after installation yourself.
5. If TeamTalk asks if you want accessibility settings enabled, answer Yes.
6. Close the Qt client. The purpose of this and the previous two steps is to create an accessibility-friendly TeamTalk configuration before importing any server entries into the client.
7. Download and run the TTConv utility for migrating your TeamTalk server list from your classic client to the Qt client. This will let you migrate all of your server entries and recents from the Classic client to the Qt client by answering a few questions.
8. Launch the Qt client again and press F2 for the server list screen. Your recent and named server lists should now be available in this client. Shift+Tab if necessary to reach the list of named servers.

Configuring TeamTalk For Accessibility

To install the (Qt) client with automatic accessibility support, if you did not do this as part of the migration process described in the previous section:

1. Launch your screen reader before your first launch of TeamTalk and let it run while TeamTalk launches.
2. If TeamTalk asks if you want accessibility settings enabled, answer Yes.

The following settings are recommended in the screens and menus indicated. Most if not all of these should be default settings; this section may however serve as a guide in case of trouble. The Preferences tabs are accessed by pressing F4.

• In Preferences > General, set a nickname by which you will be known on TeamTalk servers. You may also set your gender identification.
• In Preferences > Display, make sure
  • "Enable VU-meter updates" is not checked (this may avoid some extra speech and/or tones while you are in an active channel).
  • "Always on top" is not checked.
  • "Show number of users in channels" is checked (this helps in finding active people).
  • "Show emojis and text for channel/user state" is checked. This includes indications of when someone is transmitting.
  • "Popup message dialog on incoming message" is checked. If you have unread messages from a user, an envelope icon will appear and be spoken before that user's name in the channel tree. However, on a server with many users or channels, it may not be efficient to find users by this means; and if a user logs out, it would become difficult to read the missed messages for that user. Having a window pop up avoids these problems.
  You may also want to increase "Maximum text length in channel list" from 50 to a higher limit (this author uses 200). Especially when accessibility settings are enabled, the default limit can cut off useful information such as transmit status, admin status of a user, etc., if a user chooses a long nickname or sets a long status message.

In addition, maximizing the main TeamTalk window eases navigation through channel chat history. Alt+Space X does this to any TeamTalk window. It may also be useful to alter the Desktop shortcut for TeamTalk (assuming you created and use one) so that it automatically maximizes TeamTalk on launch. A way to do this:

1. Type Windows+M to reach the Desktop, then find your TeamTalk shortcut and type Alt+Enter to bring up its Properties page.
2. Tab to the "Run" box and change, via arrows, from "normal window" to "maximized."
3. Press Enter to apply the changes. If you are prompted with an "Access denied" box with a "Continue" button, press Enter again to save the changes with the required administrative rights.

Client Differences

The following information applies to TeamTalk Qt 5.14 as compared to TeamTalk Classic 5.8.0 and later.

There is a change in how to move multiple people at once from one channel to another. In the classic client:

1. Type Ctrl+Alt+X on each user to be moved in turn.
2. Locate the destination channel and type Ctrl+Alt+V to move them all.

1. Select each user to be moved as one would select a line in a Windows word processor: Shift+Down to select the next user below the current one, Ctrl+Space to toggle selection of the current user, Ctrl+Up/Down to move among users without changing selections, etc.
2. Type Ctrl+Alt+X once to mark the selected users for moving. This is also possible with the Store option under Advanced in the Context menu.
3. Locate the destination channel and type Ctrl+Alt+V to move them all. This is also possible with the Move option under Advanced in the Context menu.

The following features appear in the Qt client and not in the Classic client:

• A Ctrl+Alt+G command for reporting information about the channel currently containing the client, regardless of where focus is at the time. This includes the channel topic and, when applicable, the number of files available in the channel, among other items.
• The ability to check who has permission to transmit, send video, etc., in the channel tree.
• The ability to toggle who has these permissions directly from the channel tree.
• The ability to activate a link in a chat history line by arrowing to the link, not just the line, and pressing Enter.
• Shift+Enter for including a blank line in an outgoing channel message.
• More tabs in the main window, for video and desktop sharing support.
• Buttons for Upload, Download, and Delete in the Files tab; so we don't have to memorize keystrokes for those functions.
• The name of the Files tab includes the number of files available in the current channel.
• The "Question mode" checkbox in the toolbar. (In Classic, the status update dialog, F6, is the only way to change this.)

Items that are in Classic but not, or not yet, in Qt:

• The toolbar checkbox for showing or hiding the channel message box - probably not necessary.
• The ability to Tab to some of the audio configuration options for a channel while the channel is in use. These are grayed out in the Qt client because they cannot be changed while the channel is active. The Classic client allowed them to take focus but produced an error on any attempt to change them and save the changes. This author considers the Qt approach to be better.
• Support for positioning people in a monaural channel in 3-d space (Ctrl+P).

Other differences:

• If you press the Up arrow while typing a line in the main TeamTalk window, the Classic client loses your line, but the Qt client adds it to history and moves to that copy. In both clients, pressing the Down arrow next will go to a blank line; but the Up arrow after that would revive your partial line in Qt but move to the last line you actually sent in Classic. This author considers the Qt approach to be better.
• The Qt client automatically scrolls chat history messages off the top of a history window after a huge number of them have collected (roughly 128 k of text, according to this author's tests). The Classic client is not known to do this, which means it could potentially consume arbitrarily large amounts of memory when run for a very long time without a restart.