Best approach to retrieve values from a QML Modal dialog - c++

In my QT C++ application i call a QML ModalDialog with 2 buttons (OK/CANCEL), which displays correctly on screen and so, no problem there.
However i'm struggling to find a way to retrieve in my QT C++ application which button was pressed.
I'm unable to somehow "freeze" when i call the QML ModalDialog, to wait there until the user press OK Button or Cancel Button
What i see is that application calls the QML ModalDialog, and immediately exit that part and continue.
QMetaObject::invokeMethod can call a QML function and have a return value, but it just doesn't wait for the user press one of the buttons, it just exits immediately, so no use.
I want to use this QML ModalDialog in several places of my application (the QML modal
dialog can have different text passed from my QT C++ application), so i was looking to a generic solution for this.
Basically and generic speaking i'm looking for something like this:
C/C++
return_value = QML_Modal_Dialog(....)
Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks

QML modal dialog comes with two signals 'accepted' and 'cancelled'. If you provide handlers for these two signals in your code, you would be able to know which button got pressed.
You can refer to the below for reference.
Modal Dialog Ref 1
Modal Dialog Ref 2
Hope this helps!

Despite that the question is too old maybe my answer will help someone else.
I faced the same problem with Dialogs in QML. You think about it in imperative way, while QML is a declarative language that doesn't allow you to stop the flow of program and wait for the user's choice.
As Purnima suggested you should use signal handlers (you can find the list of them for Qt 5.6 here). Move some of your app's logic to the signal
handlers.
For example - if your function a() is executed based on the user's choice in dialog you should instead call it inside the dialog in its signal handlers (e.g. onAccepted or onRejected) with two different parameters based on the type of signal handler. Think about it as splitting the flow in two streams.

Related

C++ application: Passing a value from a form to the main window private variable

I am developing an application to feed a database. My main window is basically a menu that opens forms for different utilities.
Not sure if it's the best practice but let me explain what I'm trying to do:
my class mainwindow has a private QString that will store the current project name. In the menu, "Load" opens the form (another class) that lists all the existing projects in a combobox. The user chooses the project he wants and clicks OK.
I would like to return the combobox.currentText() into the dedicated private variable. After some research I still cannot figure out how to make it, wether I should use SIGNAL from the form to trigger a SLOT of the mainform or if there is a simple way to just return a value after pressing OK (such as an input dialog). If i am not clear enough, maybe the following sketch could help.
I definitively have a lack of knowledge on the subject but would be grateful for some help.
Indeed if your form for loading a project would emit a signal currentProjectChanged as soon as the user accepts the form (presses the OK button), this signal could be connected to a slot of the main window. For simple things this may be fine and elegant.
On the other hand reacting on actions sometimes needs more logic. If your action triggers a slot that cares for action execution, this slot probably should implement the logic. It should open the form and check whether the user has accepted the project change (pressed OK). In this case the action execution slot could get the new project name from the form and call a main window method to pass the new project name.

Qt Designer, missing "go to slot" in context menu?

I've been watching a Qt tutorial series on YouTube, in which the author shows how to call a function, when a button is pressed. He right-clicked on the button in Qt Creator IDE and chose "Go to slot", from where he chose the signal which would fire the generated function. Since I am used to develop with Netbeans, I simply tried to follow his example using the embedded Qt Designer. Unfortunately, there is no "Go to slot..." entry when I right-click on my button or any widget. I could, of course, create a new slot for my main window and then connect the button's signal to it, but doing it with a single function just seems way more convenient and clean to me. Is there a way to fix is, or if not, at least a way to do with via code entirely, without having to add a new slot to the main window for every single button that servers a different purpose? Thanks for your help.
While I don't know why the QtDesigner in Netbeans doesn't provide this feature, I know what the feature does: It just creates a slot with a special name in your widget class. Note that it does not add a connect statement. It uses the automatic connection feature, which works like this:
For each slot which name matches this pattern:
void on_X_Y(...)
it will be connected to the signal named Y of the object named X. So if you have a QPushButton named button, and you want to handle the signal pressed, simply create a slot with the following signature:
void on_button_pressed()
If you wonder how this slot gets connected to the signal: This happens in the ui_...h file at the end of setupUi():
QMetaObject::connectSlotsByName(WidgetName);

A blocking but non-modal QDialog?

I have a stack of images on which I want to perform some operations. After processing each image, my program should pop up a dialog to prompt the user if they want to proceed with the next image or to abort. Before that, they should have an opportunity to do some manual changes either on the images or on the parameters. Anyway, they must have access to the windows of the applications, while the execution of the method that called the dialog should be blocked until the dialog is closed.
I tried to solve this with a QMessageBox, but if I open it via exec(), it blocks the entire application, and if I use show(), the execution of the program goes on without waiting for user's reaction.
Is there a convenient way to block the calling method or function with a dialog but permit the user to interact with other windows?
Thanks in advance for any hint.
You should split your method that you want to block into two parts. In the end of first part you need to show your dialog without blocking and connect "Next" button (for example) of the dialog to the slot that must contains second part of your old method. This slot will be executed only when user presses the button.
It's the right way to do it in Qt. You need posibly to change your code logic to implement this.
Also, do you really need the second dialog? You can place "Next" button to your main widget. You can also create another modal dialog that will contain some settings and "Next" button.

Modeless dialogs and accelerators

I want to perform some action when the user presses CTRL+S inside a modeless dialog.
Accelerators would be perfect for this, except that I don't have control over the thread's message loop (think plugin), so I can't call TranslateAccelerator.
A nested message loop is not an option because the main application does a lot of processing in between calls to PeekMessage.
Is there some way I can 'force' the existing message loop to handle my accelerator?
Is there any other way besides accelerators to catch CTRL+S?
I thought about using a Window hooks on WH_GETMESSAGE, which gets called before returning from GetMessage or PeekMessage. But I'm not sure what would happen after I successfully called TranslateAcellerator, I can't let the application know I handled it.
WH_MSGFILTER would require the app to implement a call to CallMsgFilter, which it doesn't from a quick glance with a debugger.
My last idea was subclassing the control which is what I'm trying to avoid. That would require some mechanism to signal the keypress event to the parent window, which I don't think is a great design. Also, if I add more controls I would have to subclass every single one.
Thanks for any hints.
This is a fairly infamous interop problem, it rears its ugly head also when using Winforms to implement UI in a native program. Microsoft's recommendation is a rough-and-tumble one: start your own thread to display the window so you can pump your own message loop. You'll need SetParent() to avoid Z-order problems. Scary stuff, do consider a modal dialog thrice before committing to this.
Can you use WM_GETDLGCODE? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms645425(v=vs.85).aspx

How to connect a button-click signal ("triggered" signal) with an action/slot function for a user button in a toolbar with Qt Creator?

Having seen earlier existing discussion on "stackoverflow" forum about designing and managing menus and actions under an application being designed & developped under Qt Creator (see "How to connect menu click with action in Qt Creator?" : How to connect menu click with action in Qt Creator?), I'm afraid I have same questions about action buttons in a toolbar I'm trying to create & populate with Qt creator...
So, let's go !
(1) I create at least one action in the Action Editor...
(2) I drag&drop that action to the toolbar
(steps 1 & 2 are ok, no difficulties with these ones, although it is a quite unusal way of doing such things for me, because other UIM designing tools usually propose inverse steps 2 & 1 to do the same, which is more "natural" in my opinion, but, I know, many many things exist and co-exist in our world of software designing & programming...)
=> (3) How to associate (connect) the function (which I'm going to implement) that is supposed to be called when clicking the given toolbar button ?
I mean, how to connect the "triggered" signal for the given action (toolbar button) to the desired slot (function) to be implementing later... ? Is it possible to do such things with the "Signals and slots editor" inside Qt Creator, or do I have to call "connect()" by myself somewhere in the code to achieve this ? Many thanks in advance for any help/suggestion/detailed example for perfect beginner at this point...
In fact, I would to know wether it is possible not to call connect() by myself for such need and wether Qt Creator will create slot (function) prototype by itself or do we have to create such slot (function) prototypes by ourselves before Qt Creator can take the new slot (function) prototype into account and really assist/help user/developper in this usual/normal UIM design step / designing capability... ?
Best regards.
Alain-Pierre
If the QAction is a member if your window, then the normal
QMetaObject::connectSlotsByName(SettingsDialog);
...will connect an action's trigger signal with an appropriately named slot method. This is normally called automatically by GUI classes created using the designer. So if the action is named actionSomething for example, creating a slot in your GUI class with a signature like:
void on_actionSomething_triggered();
...will mean that you don't have to manually connect the signals and slots.
Also, right-clicking on the action in the action editor and selecting 'Go to slot...' will allow you to create a slot function for any signal that the action may emit.