I have a current C++ program built using GNU make. It is reasonably large - about a dozen .cpp files and a similar number of headers.
It all runs off the command line and currently just outputs to cout and cerr.
I want to add Qt interface elements to it - what is the best way to do this?
(I have built some Qt stuff in the past (not for a few years) though I am rusty - the C++ code I have now works and I don't want to change that, just fix the way it outputs information to the end user.)
You didn't specify whether you're interested in Qt Widgets or Qt Quick, so I'll assume widgets.
Fire up Qt Creator, and create a new Qt Widgets project. Open designer mode by double clicking on the .ui file that was created and start creating the interface that you want. If you just want somewhere to start integrating your logic, dump your existing code into mainwindow.cpp (or whatever you called it) and refactor it as you learn more about Qt.
For example, one of your buttons might cause a slot to be invoked, and you could then do all of your stuff in that slot.
There are also a lot of non-gui-related utility classes like QCommandLineParser that may help you out.
Related
How to create an application which stays in top of MacOS, something similar to below image. You can see the Evernote elephant icon.
I don't want to use xcode - because my application already built in QT, it has nice GUI, now I wanted to add extended feature something similar to Evernote. If I click on an elephant it will open a dialog box to write notes. In my case- it's a simple event like on/off buttons.
I have tried and created GUI widget apps but how to make one which resides like Evernote app ?
A custom pop up menu like the one pictured can be done several ways in Qt.
QML is the most modern way of making the menu with the customized styling you are looking for.
Apply the appropriate flags to the window/widget so it appears as a popup.
The same effects can also be done in QWidgets, but takes more code and probably will take longer to make. The flags you are looking for will be found under Qt Window Flags and/or under Qt Widget Attributes.
The stock stylings for Qt for different OS's deal mostly with title bars, status bars, buttons, drop downs, etc.
The base styles for Mac can be found here:
http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/gallery-macintosh.html
Once you go to a customized popup, you have to draw all of it yourself... but the native drawing elements in Qt are friendly enough and get you that look you are trying to do.
There are even some tools for exporting from Photoshop or Gimp directly to QML.
http://doc.qt.io/qtcreator/quick-export-to-qml.html
Hope that helps.
You are looking for a tray icon. Qt implements it in QSystemTrayIcon.
Further information
You may take a look at the System Tray Icon Example.
Many StackOverflow posts exist on this topic.
If you already have a program written for Qt, then you can compile and run it under MacOS/X much the same way you could compile it under (whatever OS you're using now). You'll need to install Xcode because Xcode includes the C++ compiler (clang) you'll need in order to compile your Qt program, but you don't have to use the Xcode IDE if you don't want to. Rather, you can either use the QtCreator IDE under MacOS/X, or you can simply open up a Terminal window and do a "qmake ; make" in the directory where your Qt-based program's .pro file is, and build it from the command line that way.
If, on the other hand, your question is actually about how to add an icon to the global menu of a MacOS/X desktop, then I don't think Qt has an API for that, so you'll need to drop down to using one of MacOS/X's native APIs. That will probably involve learning some Objective-C (or Objective-C++, if you prefer), but integrating a bit of Objective-C/C++ into your Qt app is doable with a bit of work.
I have a problem. I am using C++ to develop an application in Win32 that among other scopes automatize some user input process in an external app in order for the user to be ready to operate.
Particularly I would like to use Win32 API to fill some text in a Qt QWidget control. I wrote a DLL in pure C to get this task done. I tested it on a MFC application and it works very well.
Anyway I could not get it to work for Qt QWidget controls.
I was able to get the right handle via the EnumChildWindows function (stored in the struct Field).
SendMessage(Field.hFound,WM_SETTEXT,(WPARAM)NULL,(LPARAM)_T("bla bla bla"));
But the SendMessage doesn't seem to work because maybe the control (most probably a QLineedit) supports other messages to get this job done.
Is there any specification for these events, I googled a lot but I could not find anything suitable.
What is the most straightforward way to get this code working? Is there an Event table mapping for Qt I could use? Do I have to use some Qt headers and link it against a DLL (this could be a problem because of licensing)?
Thanks in advance.
Qt, at least 4.8 and 5.x, uses foreign controls. None of the widgets, beyond the window, have native handles. Your EnumChildWindows is most likely not finding what you think it's finding.
If you don't have access to the Qt application's source code, there's nothing else you can do, short of injecting your own code into the running application. If the application is dynamically linked, you can figure out what version of Qt it's using, and what compiler it was compiled with, and the likely set of Qt configuration options. You can then compile your own code with the same compiler and using same Qt version, and inject it into the running application. You can then enumerate visible windows, and their children, and find the control you're after.
I'm fairly new to Qt, and am trying to wrap my head around signals and slots. Though I've figured out how to create custom slots, I've yet to figure out how do update the GUI from my C++ code. I realized that the entire UI, which I created in the designer, is only written in what appears to be XML based UI code. Do I have to handwrite my own Qt C++ UI in order to update the interface, or can I somehow use C++ to update the XML based UI? I'm just looking to add a widget to the main form on a button click. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
To add a widget to a form you can simply do
ui->layout()->addWidget(new Widget);
XML is used by QtDesigner as a mean to create, update, and persist your GUI, enabling a visual approach to development, but in the end you can build your application entirely without it.
you dont havfe to update the xml of UI . you can inherit the ui into your own class using setupUi
http://crpppc19.epfl.ch/doc/qt4-doc-html/html/qwidget.html#setupUi
now in your C++ class you can update the widgets like changing label text, lineEdit text, setting up spinbox value using Signals & slot.
That xml is used by Qt designer and outside of designer it's only used by uic as a source to generate C++ code, so everything that you do in the designer end-up as C++ code, so it can be updated (or done completely) in C++ code (you can look into the code and see that you most likely have a member called ui that is most likely a pointer, but it can also be an instance of a C++ class that is generated for you by uic, and trough that ui member you can access the widgets and layouts that you created in the designer).
A generic resource that i recommend you to read can be found here and then (if you still can't figure it out) ask a specific question about what exactly are you trying to achieve.
LE: that link contains 3 methods to use the generated code into C++ code, don't try all of them into your working project, you may choose one method or use the default one (ui member pointer)
I'm new at QT, actually I didn't start yet but I'm intending to create a xml file (markups and nodes and everything .. ) from a QT user interface.
For example the user can find in my interface text fields where he can insert an employee name, id and age and my program will turn that to an employee node in my output xml file with its attributes name , id , age. so since I'm coding with c++ I wanted to create this interface as a QT GUI but I found that QT creator provides a project named QT Widget with the same option.
So I'm kind of confused now and I don't know what's the difference between them so I can chose.
I will appreciate any help from guys.
If I have understood your question correctly: a Qt Widget is a tiny element, one of the many items in a gui (buttons, comboboxes are all widgets). The Qt Widget, project type is for creating one, which you can use in a separate projects interface.
A Qt Gui is more likely the project type you want, that will allow you to drag in many widgets to create your 'interface text fields'.
You would use a Qt Widget project type if you need to do more advanced customization or create your own text field control.
Do you mean Qt Quick vs. Qt Widgets?
Qt Quick is a more recent type of Qt GUI which is created from a declarative markup languages known as QML. The QML source is interpreted at run-time as opposed to Qt Widgets which are compiled from C++ source code into native executable code. In addition to QML, Qt Quick uses inline Javascript for scripting the UI, but it can be (and usually is) interfaced from C++ for more complex processing.
EDIT: Qt Quick is also very much touch-oriented (at least at its current state) whereas Qt Widget GUIs provide a much richer set of UI elements. So if you are making a desktop application, you might want to leave Qt Quick alone.
We're about to commit to Qt and C++ (sigh) to do some cross-platform development. The latest version of Qt 4.5 seems very nice as does the QT Creator IDE, which although simple compared to other IDEs, is a good way to get started.
I'm trying to understand how to do drag and drop into QT widgets from the "outside" world. As far as I can tell from the documentation, you're supposed to subclass a widget that you want to have respond to drop events and override some methods (the dragEnterEvent and dropEvent member functions) for that widget.
But if I use the Qt Creator tool, I don't seem to have any access to the classes of the widgets that I have created using the GUI form builder and so I can't subclass them.
WHat's the secret?
Thanks in advance,
D
Someone on my team figured it out ---- turns out there is an option to "Promote" a widget, meaning you can subclass it to something else and then override the needed methods with no pain.
Seems to me it would have been more obvious if it said "Subclass widget..." rather than "Promote" but that's OK.
This QT Creator is a very nice piece of work.
I've never used QT creator environment, but I assume it spits out code afterward. Can you edit the code it spits out?
If you subclass the classes in a separate file, it shouldn't get overwritten when you rebuild your app with QT creator environment.
I suppose this is really a question for the QT creator forum though, sounds like a problem in THEIR user interface.