Quilt integrates Qt's meta-compilers into native Xcode and Visual Studio projects, allowing automatic pre-processing without using qmake.
Although qmake can generate simple Xcode/Visual Studio project files, it does not support new IDE features such as external .xcconfig or .vsprops files.
Quilt is normally invoked by a pre-build step in the development environment, and a build rule during the actual build.
During the pre-build phase Quilt scans your source tree for files that contain Q_OBJECT macros. It then generates a single .moc file, which identifies the source files that require pre-processing.
During the actual build Quilt is invoked to process any Qt files (.moc, .qrc, or .ui) in the project. It invokes the appropriate Qt meta-compiler for each file, and adds the derived source to the build.
Once Quilt has been attached to your project, the identification and compilation of Qt source is automatic.