How to hide a temporary search bar? - c++

Question

I have a window that contains a browser. Up is a toolbar. In the bottom of the window is a search bar.
Search bar has a close button [x].
When the user clicks the close button I want the bar to disappear.
I want the bar only appear when user press CTRL + F. I tried to connect the close butoon with .hide() command, but application crashes. I need help.
.cpp
DocumentationWin::DocumentationWin (QWidget * parent){
docs = new QTextBrowser( this );
//Prepare toolbar
toolbar = new QToolBar( this );
//add stuff to toolbar
//Prepare footer bar
searchlabel = new QLabel(tr("Find in page:"),this);
resultslabel = new QLabel("",this);
searchinput = new QLineEdit();
findprev = new QToolButton(this);
findprev->setArrowType(Qt::UpArrow);
connect(findprev, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT (clickFindPrev()));
findnext = new QToolButton(this);
findnext->setArrowType(Qt::DownArrow);
connect(findnext, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT (clickFindNext()));
QStyle *style = qApp->style();
QIcon closeIcon = style->standardIcon(QStyle::SP_TitleBarCloseButton);
QPushButton *closeButton = new QPushButton(this);
closeButton->setIcon(closeIcon);
closeButton->setFlat(true);
connect(closeButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT (clickCloseFind()));
QWidget *bottom = new QWidget;
QHBoxLayout *footer = new QHBoxLayout();
casecheckbox = new QCheckBox(tr("Case sensitive"),this);
footer->setContentsMargins(5,5,5,5);
footer->addWidget(searchlabel);
footer->addSpacing(3);
footer->addWidget(searchinput);
footer->addWidget(findprev);
footer->addWidget(findnext);
footer->addSpacing(10);
footer->addWidget(casecheckbox);
footer->addSpacing(10);
footer->addWidget(resultslabel);
footer->addStretch(1);
footer->addWidget(closeButton);
bottom->setLayout(footer);
//Prepare main layout
layout = new QVBoxLayout;
layout->setContentsMargins(0,0,0,0);
layout->setSpacing(0);
layout->addWidget(toolbar);
layout->addWidget(docs);
layout->addWidget(bottom);
this->setLayout(layout);
this->show();
}
void DocumentationWin::clickCloseFind(){
bottom->hide();
}
.h
class DocumentationWin : public QDialog
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
DocumentationWin(QWidget * parent);
protected:
virtual void keyPressEvent(QKeyEvent *);
private slots:
void clickCloseFind();
private:
QVBoxLayout* layout;
QToolBar* toolbar;
QTextBrowser* docs;
QBoxLayout* footer;
QLabel *searchlabel;
QLabel *resultslabel;
QLineEdit *searchinput;
QToolButton *findprev;
QToolButton *findnext;
QCheckBox *casecheckbox;
QWidget *bottom;
QPushButton *closeButton;
};

Answer 1

Ahh, the classic case of local variables hiding the members. There have been quite a few identical questions on SO about this. This is wrong:
QWidget *bottom = new QWidget;
You want:
bottom = new QWidget;
You'll run into these problems always because you dynamically allocate all the widgets - that's completely unnecessary.
Suggestions:
Hold the child widgets and layouts by value, don't dynamically allocate them.
Don't pass a parent to widgets that are managed by a layout. Every widget that is laid out will be automatically parented.
Don't redundantly call setLayout. A QLayout takes the widget to lay its children on as a constructor argument.
QWidget::hide() is a slot.
Many widgets take the text as a constructor argument.
If you don't have any arguments to pass to the constructor in a new expression, you can drop the parentheses (but we try to avoid these anyway):
searchinput = new QLineEdit; // not QLineEdit();
Widgets shouldn't usually show() themselves upon construction. No Qt widget does that. It's up to the widget's user to do it.
C++ overloads a method call syntax with construction syntax. To differentiate the two, prefer uniform initialization (Type{arg0, arg1, ...}) over old syntax that used ().
Here's how your code can look when you're using C++11. This compiles with either Qt 4 or Qt 5. If you don't target Qt 4, you should be using the new connect syntax, though.
As you can see, there isn't a single explicit dynamic allocation - that's how quite a bit of C++11 code will look, when the used types are sane.
// https://github.com/KubaO/stackoverflown/tree/master/questions/find-hide-38082794
#include <QtGui>
#if QT_VERSION >= QT_VERSION_CHECK(5,0,0)
#include <QtWidgets>
#endif
class DocumentationWin : public QDialog
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
explicit DocumentationWin(QWidget * parent = 0);
private:
QVBoxLayout layout{this};
QToolBar toolbar;
QTextBrowser docs;
QWidget bottom;
QHBoxLayout footer{&bottom};
QLabel searchlabel{tr("Find in page:")};
QLabel resultslabel;
QLineEdit searchinput;
QToolButton findprev;
QToolButton findnext;
QCheckBox casecheckbox{tr("Case sensitive")};
QPushButton closeButton;
Q_SLOT void onFindPrev() {}
Q_SLOT void onFindNext() {}
};
DocumentationWin::DocumentationWin(QWidget * parent) : QDialog(parent) {
findprev.setArrowType(Qt::UpArrow);
connect(&findprev, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(onFindPrev()));
findnext.setArrowType(Qt::DownArrow);
connect(&findnext, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(onFindNext()));
auto style = qApp->style();
auto closeIcon = style->standardIcon(QStyle::SP_TitleBarCloseButton);
closeButton.setIcon(closeIcon);
closeButton.setFlat(true);
connect(&closeButton, SIGNAL(clicked(bool)), &bottom, SLOT(hide()));
footer.setContentsMargins(5,5,5,5);
footer.addWidget(&searchlabel);
footer.addSpacing(3);
footer.addWidget(&searchinput);
footer.addWidget(&findprev);
footer.addWidget(&findnext);
footer.addSpacing(10);
footer.addWidget(&casecheckbox);
footer.addSpacing(10);
footer.addWidget(&resultslabel);
footer.addStretch(1);
footer.addWidget(&closeButton);
layout.setContentsMargins(0,0,0,0);
layout.setSpacing(0);
layout.addWidget(&toolbar);
layout.addWidget(&docs);
layout.addWidget(&bottom);
}
int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
QApplication app{argc, argv};
DocumentationWin win;
win.show();
return app.exec();
}
#include "main.moc"