O’Reilly Verlag

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Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The bird featured on the cover of Programming with Qt is a toucan. Thirty-eight species of toucans are found in tropical America from southern Mexico to Bolivia and northern Argentina. The most obvious feature of the toucan is its bill. The biggest bill is that of the male toco toucan, reaching a size of nearly 10 inches, which is more than the body without the tail. In spite of its immense size, the bill is surprisingly light in weight. A think horny sheath of hard keratin encloses a hollow that is crisscrossed by many thin supporting rods. However, the bill is so out-of-proportion that the bird seems to be handicapped during flight, leading to a quite awkward flight pattern with bursts of flapping followed by a glide. It is still unkonwn why toucans have such an exaggerated bill. It may be useful to reach berries or seeds from twigs too thin to bear the bird's weight, but a thinner and less vividly coloured bill would serve the same purpose. A funtion as a signal during courtship seems to be more likely. Hornbills, which can be found in Africa and Asia, have similar-looking bills, but they are not related to toucans. Toucans are related to woodpeckers, having a characteristic feature in common: Their feet are arranged in a pattern with two toes forward and two toes back. Toucans are primarily fruit eaters, but they also take insects, frogs, lizards, and eggs and nestlings of smaller birds. They are social birds and can often be seen in flocks of six or more individuals, making croaking noises similar to frogs.They live in rainforests and more open woodlands, where they nest in natural tree holes, often old woodpecker holes. Clutches are of two to four egges which are incubated by both parents. The eggs hatch after two weeks. The young are quite ugly and very helpless. They have no feathers, and even in the age of more than three weeks, when they open their eyes for the first time, they show a lot of naked skin. Toucans have a lifespan of approximately 10 years. In captivity, they sometimes become quite tame. Native Indians used to keep toucans in their villages, but they also appreciated their feathers as ornaments. Elke Hansel was the editor and production editor for Programming with Qt, and Claire Cloutier LeBlanc organized the copyediting with Mitzi and Debby. Margrit Müller was the production manager. Kalle Dalheimer wrote the index.

Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using the original illustration by Lorrie LeJeune. The cover layout was produced with QuarkXPress 3.32 using ITC Garamond font.

The inside layout was designed by Margrit Müller and Nancy Priest, and implemented in FrameMaker 5.5 by Stefan Goebel. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. This colophon was written by Joachim Kurtz.