Item views: setSelectionModel and support for row editing - c++

In my Qt (6.3.1) application, for a model I developed, I noticed the submit() method being called all the time.
After some debugging, I noticed, in void QTableView::setSelectionModel/QTreeView::setSelectionModel, this:
if (d->selectionModel) {
// support row editing
connect(d->selectionModel, SIGNAL(currentRowChanged(QModelIndex,QModelIndex)),
d->model, SLOT(submit()));
}
The documentation for QAbstractItemModel::submit() mentions "this function is typically used for row editing", which means this is done on purpose.
I have got more than 1 problem with this way of doing things, compared to the alternative of letting/requiring application developers to create the connection themselves:
Views do not seem to have a property to stop this connection from being created, hence the behavior is more than just a default, it is mandatory.
I do not see any way to know what to do except looking through Qt's source code. I had rather have to create the connection myself if I want it.
Only QSqlTableModel seems to have a mechanism to handle this (editStrategy()) but I could find nothing in neither QAbstractItemModel nor QAbstractTableModel.
-> what would be a good reason to want this connection above to be always created? Or am I perhaps wrong thinking this design is a bad one?

Answering my own question after 4 weeks without another answer nor any comment.
Despite having found a solution that seems to work in every case (see below), I still think this very design choice made by Qt as well as other special case they implemented are bad choices, would be interested to read other opinions in the comments.
Better than disconnecting signals, the solution I ended up implementing was to subclass QIdentityProxyModel and create an attribute to block the calls to submit (+ optionally revert).
void MyModel::revert() {
if (forwardRevertCalls)
QIdentityProxyModel::revert();
}
bool MyModel::submit() {
if (forwardSubmitCalls)
return QIdentityProxyModel::submit();
else
return false;
}
The reason for this choice is because of another special case in QStyledItemDelegate::eventFilter. Found in the documentation:
If the editor's type is QTextEdit or QPlainTextEdit then Enter and Return keys are not handled.
And I suppose things like QSpinBox do not behave this way.
This was causing submit to be called whenever I pressed Enter to validate an input in my model and change the selected row in 1 input; more precisely, it would execute case QAbstractItemDelegate::SubmitModelCache in QAbstractItemView::closeEditor.

Related

QDialog::setResult with custom return values

please note: qt/c++ newbie here
Purpose:
I have a QDialog from which I want to return a result. I am aware of the QDialog::exec() which combined with setResult, results in the use of Accept() or Reject(),
but as the documentation page reads, the developers suggest to sue the QDialog return codes, implying that different values can be used although I have had no luck with this.
enum ReturnResult{
success=0,
fail=1
error=2
warning=3
}
How may I use the QDialog::setResult() function to send custom enum values to (as seen above),
as a result, back to the parent class, if this is not possible, any suggestion as to how I may solve this problem?
You can call QDialog::done(int res) to close a dialog with the desired result code, which then will be the return value of QDialog::exec().
The documentation for result() states that
In general returns the modal dialog's result code, Accepted or Rejected.
If I understand correctly, that means that even if the current implementation allows passing custom values, you cannot be certain that it won't change and break your code in the future.
In your case, simply add another signal to it and connect to it, or add your own field to your dialog and use it to pass the data.

Reordering MFC control IDs automatically

I've got a pretty old MFC application that's been touched by many people over the years (most of them probably not even CS guys) and it follows, what I like to call the "anarchy design pattern."
Anyway, one of the dialogs has a series of 56 vertical sliders and check boxes. However, there are additional sliders and checkboxes on the dialog as shown below.
Now, the problem is that the additional sliders and checkboxes take on IDs that are in sequence with the slider/checkbox series of the dialog. My task is to add more sliders and checkboxes to the series (in the blank space in the Slider Control group box) Unfortunately, since IDC_SLIDER57 through IDC_SLIDER61 are already in the dialog (same goes for the checkboxes), existing code, such as the snippet below will break:
pVSlider = (CSliderCtrl *)GetDlgItem(IDC_SLIDER1+i);
Is there a better way to modify the resource file without doing it manually? I've seen a third party tool called ResOrg that looks like it'll help do what I want, but the software is a bit pricey, especially since I'll only use it once. I guess I can give the demo a try, but the limitations might restrict me.
FYI, I'm using Visual C++ 6.0 (yes...I know, don't laugh, it's being forced upon me).
Instead of writing:
pVSlider = (CSliderCtrl *)GetDlgItem(IDC_SLIDER1+i);
you could write:
pVSlider = (CSliderCtrl *)GetDlgItem(GetSliderID(i));
where GetSlider is a function that returns the id of slider number i.
GetSlider function
int GetSliderID(int nslider)
{
static int sliderids[] = {IDC_SLIDER1, IDC_SLIDER2, IDC_SLIDER3, .... IDC_SLIDERn};
ASSERT(nslider < _countof(sliderids));
return sliderids[nslider];
}
With this method the IDC_SLIDERn symbols dont need to have sequential values.

What signal should I capture to grab the text of Gtk::Entry before it is changed?

I am writing an application using gtkmm 3 (running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) and working right now with the Gtk::Entry control.
I cannot find the correct signal to capture so that I can grab the Gtk::Entry buffer text before it is changed, and persist it to maintain a record of changes. I know that in some other tool-kits, there is a hook provided that facilitates such. (I believe using a "shadow buffer".)
What signal do I have to grab to do this? What is the slot's signature for this signal? Is this functionality supported at all?
Since you are changing the behaviour, it's better to inherit from Gtk::Entry:
class ValidatedEntry : public Gtk::Entry {
Glib::ustring last_valid;
virtual void on_changed()
{
Glib::ustring text = get_text();
if (... validation here ...)
set_text(last_valid); // WARNING: will call this on_changed() again
else
last_valid = text;
Gtk::Entry::on_changed(); // propagate down
}
};
BUT
This goes against usability, that's why it's not a built-in behaviour. Users won't like the text reverting back just because they miss-typed something; they might hit backspace before they realize the entry threw the wrong character away.
You should at least wait until the user presses the Enter key (i.e. signal_activate or override on_activate()), or do something less drastic, like showing a warning icon.
You could give a try to GObject's "notify" signal. It is used in conjunction with the property to spy. Connecting to "notify::text" will call your callback for each modification of the "text" property, but the first change may be the setter that will set the initial value, that you could then store. Worth a try.
Otherwise, you could try to store it on the first triggering of the "insert-text" or "delete-text" signals. Please give use some feedback if that seems to work.
I also agree with DanielKO: on an usability point of view, modifying user input is just annoying and bad practice. Better to tell her which field is wrong, put the focus there, and/or have a button to reset to defaults, but not enforce any change on user input.

Qt User customizable hotkeys

I'm trying to design a Qt GUI application with user customize-able hotkeys. The main issue I'm running into is how to synchronize the hotkeys across the application since a particular hotkey (for example, copy) may be used by multiple widgets/components.
My current strategy is to use a reference class which holds a list of QKeySequence objects for each different hotkey. Each widget would have to have a way to reference this master list and have custom implementations of low-level the keyPressEvent which would compare inputted keys vs. the hotkeys. I don't particularly like this strategy, though, as it requires significant re-implimentation in each widget and feels like I'm trying to re-invent the wheel.
I also tried using QAction objects which can hold QKeySequence shortcuts internally, then use these to trigger higher-level events which I can handle using slots & signals. However, the main issue I have here is how to manage which slots signals get routed to.
For example, say I have 2 open widgets which can both receive a copy action signal. I can connect a slot for both of these to the same signal and take advantage of the single update point for shortcuts, but then things get messy since only the active widget should act on the copy signal, not both widgets. I can re-implement the focusOutEvent and focusInEvent handlers to connect/disconnect slots manually, but this also seems to run into the same issue above where I'm trying to re-invent the wheel and doing more work than is necessary.
Is there an easier way around this problem?
I don't think there is a particularly easy/non-tedious solution to this problem, but when I needed to add user-customizable hotkeys to my application, here is how I did it:
1) Start with your application that has hard-coded key shortcuts, e.g. code like this:
QMenu * editMenu = new QMenu;
QAction * copyItem = menu->addAction(tr("Copy"), this, SLOT(CopyData()));
copyItem->setShortcut(tr("Ctrl+C"));
2) Create a GetKeySequence() function that looks something like this:
static QHash<QString, QKeySequence> _usersKeyPreferences;
static bool _usersKeyPreferencesLoaded = false;
QKeySequence GetKeySequence(const QString & keySequence, const QString & contextStr)
{
if (_usersKeyPreferencesLoaded == false)
{
// Oops, time to load in the user's saved custom-key settings from a file somewhere
_usersKeyPreferences = LoadUsersKeyPreferencesFromFile();
_usersKeyPreferencesLoaded = true; // so we'll only try to load the file once
}
if (_usersKeyPreferences.contains(contextStr))
{
return _usersKeyPreferences[contextStr];
}
else
{
// No user preference specified? Okay, fall back to using the
// hard-coded default key sequence instead.
return QKeySequence(qApp->translate(contextStr, keySequence));
}
}
3) Now the tedious part: grovel over all of your code, and anywhere you've specified a key-sequence explicitly (like in the third line of the code shown for step 1), wrap it with a call to GetKeySequence(), like this:
copyItem->setShortcut(GetKeySequence(tr("Ctrl+C"), tr("Edit_Menu|Copy")));
4) At this point, your program's key-sequences will be customizable; just make sure that the key-settings-file is present on disk before GUI-creation code runs. Here's an excerpt from my program's key-mappings file (which I store as a simple ASCII text file):
Edit_Menu|Copy = Ctrl+C
Edit_Menu|Cut = Ctrl+X
Edit_Menu|Paste = Ctrl+V
[... and so on for all other menu items, etc...]
... of course one downside to this approach is that once the GUI is created, the key-bindings can't be modified "on the fly" (at least, not without a lot of additional coding). My program gets around this simply by closing and then re-creating all windows after the user clicks "Save and Apply" in the Edit Key Bindings dialog.
5) An optional further step (which is some extra work up front but saves time in the long run) is to write a program (or script) that greps all the .cpp files in your program's codebase looking for calls GetKeySequence() in the code. When it finds a GetKeySequence() call, it parses out the two arguments to the call and prints them as a line in a key-bindings file with the default settings. This is useful because you can make this script part of your autobuild, and thereafter you'll never have to remember to manually update the default key-settings-file whenever you add a new menu item (or other key-sequence specifier) to your program.
This worked well for me, anyway. The advantage is that you don't have to refactor your existing program at all; you can just go through it inserting GetKeySequence() as necessary while leaving the larger logic/structure of the program intact.

Weird bug in Qt application

In my application, I have my re-implemented QGraphicsView checking for a mouseReleaseEvent(), and then telling the item at the position the mouse is at to handle the event.
The QGraphicsItem for my view is made up of two other QGraphicsItems, and I check which one of the two is being clicked on (or rather having the button released on), and handle the respective events.
In my Widget's constructor, I set one of the items as selected by default, using the same methods I used when the items detect a release.
When I debugged, I found that for the LabelItem, select is called without a problem from the constructor (and the result is clear when I first start the application). But, when I click on the items, the application terminates. I saw that I was getting into the select function, but not leaving it. So the problem is here.
Which is very weird, because the select function is just a single line setter.
void LabelItem::select()
{
selected = true;
}
This is the mouseReleaseEvent;
void LayerView::mouseReleaseEvent(QMouseEvent *event)
{
LayerItem *l;
if(event->button() == Qt::LeftButton)
{
l = (LayerItem *) itemAt(event->pos());
if(l->inLabel(event->pos()))
{ //No problem upto this point, if label is clicked on
l->setSelection(true); //in setSelection, I call select() or unselect() of LabelItem,
//which is a child of LayerItem, and the problem is there.
//In the constructor for my main widget, I use setSelection
//for the bottom most LayerItem, and have no issues.
emit selected(l->getId());
}
else if(l->inCheckBox(event->pos()))
{
bool t = l->toggleCheckState();
emit toggled(l->getId(), t);
}
}
}
When I commented the line out in the function, I had no errors. I have not debugged for the other QGraphicsItem, CheckBoxItem, but the application terminates for its events as well. I think the problem might be related, so I'm concentrating on select, for now.
I have absolutely no clue as to what could have caused this and why this is happening. From my past experience, I'm pretty sure it's something simple which I'm stupidly not thinking of, but I can't figure out what.
Help would really be appreciated.
If the LabelItem is on top of the LayerItem, itemAt will most likely return the LabelItem because it is the topmost item under the mouse. Unless the LabelItem is set to not accept any mouse button with l->setAcceptedMouseButtons(0).
Try to use qgraphicsitem_cast to test the type of the item. Each derived class must redefine QGraphicsItem::type() to return a distinct value for the cast function to be able to identify the type.
You also could handle the clicks in the items themselves by redefining their QGraphicsItem::mouseReleaseEvent() method, it would remove the need for the evil cast, but you have to remove the function LayerView::mouseReleaseEvent() or at least recall the base class implementation, QGraphicsView::mouseReleaseEvent(), to allow the item(s) to receive the event.
I have seen these odd behaviours: It was mostly binary incompatibility - the c++ side looks correct, and the crash just does not make sense. As you stated: In your code the "selected" variable cannot be the cause. Do you might have changed the declaration and forgot the recompile all linked objects. Just clean and recompile all object files. Worked for me in 99% of the cases.