LinuxQuestions.org - Adjusting to KDE4 development, a few issues

I've just started rebuilding an app for kde 4.0.x and I'm having a lot
of difficulty doing so by the book.

First of, the ${appname}ui.rc file seems to lack effect.
Are there a few issues that the tutorial on techbase.kde.org doesn't
mention?

Also I'm doing a lot of forced type conversions like this:

Quote:

file.open( (QIODevice::OPenMode) 1 );

and

Quote:

cout << qstr.toLatin1().data()

NOTE: I'm not on my box so I can't be sure if the QIO... part is exact.

Also is using CMake absolutely needed on KDE4 (I know that it allows
for windows porting but I doubt that my program could be used that well
on Windows). I simply don't like having allot of excess files that aren't
hand coded in the src folder.

In short am I doing something seriously wrong or are these growing pains
for KDE?