Force QtCreator to run “qmake” when building

Question

In some of my projects I use some pre-build step(s) configured in the .pro file. So qmake will execute this step whenever it is activated.

Now in QtCreator,

Answer 1

What I've done is created a makefile that explicitly calls qmake. Of course, that means I have two makefiles, but in my project file, I have

MAKEFILE = makefile_qt

which means that the generated makefile will have that name.

So, for the makefile I manually created, I have:

default: 
    qmake;
    ${MAKE} -f makefile_qt;

Then, from QtCreator, I just call the regular make, which will default to makefile. Or you can leave the Qt-generated makefile as is, and just call make -f makefile to call your manually created one. I forget which has precedence, makefile or Makefile, and I'm not sure if it is always the same.