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** additional rights. These rights are described in the Trolltech GPL
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** GPL_EXCEPTION.txt in this package.
**
** Please review the following information to ensure GNU General
** Public Licensing requirements will be met:
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/*!
\page designer-manual.html
\startpage index.html Qt Reference Documentation
\nextpage Getting Started with Qt Designer

\title Qt Designer Manual
\ingroup qttools

\keyword Qt Designer

\QD is Trolltech's tool for designing and building graphical user
interfaces (GUIs) from Qt components. It allows you to design and build
widgets and dialogs using on-screen forms using the same widgets that
will be used in your application.
Components created with \QD can also take advantage of Qt's
signals and slots, and they can be previewed so that you can ensure
that they will look and feel exactly as you intended.

\section1 Using Qt Designer

\list
\i \l{Getting Started with Qt Designer}
  \tableofcontents{1 Getting Started with Qt Designer}
\i \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer}
 \tableofcontents{1 Designing a Component with Qt Designer}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode}
 \tableofcontents{1 Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode}
\i \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer}
 \tableofcontents{1 Using Containers in Qt Designer}
\i \l{Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer}
 \tableofcontents{1 Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode}
 \tableofcontents{1 Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Buddy Editing Mode}
 \tableofcontents{1 Qt Designer's Buddy Editing Mode}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Tab Order Editing Mode}
 \tableofcontents{1 Qt Designer's Tab Order Editing Mode}
\i \l{Editing Resources with Qt Designer}
 \tableofcontents{1 Editing Resources with Qt Designer}
\i \l{Customizing Qt Designer Forms}
 \tableofcontents{1 Modifying the Form Settings}
\i \l{Using Custom Widgets with Qt Designer}
 \tableofcontents{1 Using Custom Widgets with Qt Designer}
\endlist

\section1 Using Forms and Components

\list
\i \l{Using a Component in Your Application}
 \tableofcontents{1 Using a Component in Your Application}
\endlist

\section1 Customizing Qt Designer
\list
\i \l{Creating Custom Widgets for Qt Designer}
 \tableofcontents{1 Creating Custom Widgets for Qt Designer}
\i \l{Creating Custom Widget Extensions}
 \tableofcontents{1 Creating Custom Widget Extensions}
\i \l{Qt Designer's UI File Format}
 \tableofcontents{1 Qt Designer's UI File Format}
\endlist

\section1 Figures and Hints

\list
\i \l{Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer#AddingADockWidget}{Adding a Dock Widget}
\i \l{Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer#AddingAnAction}{Adding an Action}
\i \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer#AddingWidgetsToAForm}{Adding Widgets to a Form}
\i \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer#ChoosingAForm}{Choosing a Form}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode#ChoosingSignalsAndSlots}{Choosing Signals and Slots}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode#ConnectingToTheForm}{Connecting to a Form}
\i \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer#ConnectingWidgets}{Connecting Widgets}
\i \l{Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer#CreatingAMenu}{Creating a Menu}
\i \l{Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer#CreatingAMenuEntry}{Creating a Menu Entry}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode#DeletingConnections}{Deleting Connections}
\i \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer#Dock Widgets}{Dock Widgets}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode#DragAndDrop}{Drag and drop}
\i \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer#EditingModes}{Editing Modes}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode#EditingProperties}{Editing Properties}
\i \l{Editing Resources with Qt Designer#EditResource}{Editing Resource Files}
\i \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer#Frames}{Frames}
\i \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer#Group Boxes}{Group Boxes}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode#HighlightedObjects}{Highlighted Objects}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode#InsertingObjectsIntoALayout}{Inserting Objects into a Layout}
\i \l{Customizing Qt Designer Forms#LayoutFunction}{Layout Function}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode#MakingAConnection}{Making a Connection}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Buddy Editing Mode#MakingBuddies}{Making Buddies}
\i \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer#PlacingWidgetsInLayouts}{Placing Widgets in Layouts}
\i \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer#PreviewingAForm}{Previewing a Form}
\i \l{Getting Started with Qt Designer#MainWindow}{\QD's Main Window}
\i \l{Getting Started with Qt Designer#WidgetBox}{\QD's Widget Box}
\i \l{Editing Resources with Qt Designer#ResourceFiles}{Resource Files}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode#SelectingObjects}{Selecting Objects}
\i \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer#Stacked Widgets}{Stacked Widgets}
\i \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer#Tab Widgets}{Tab Widgets}
\i \l{Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer#TheActionEditor}{The Action Editor}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode#TheObjectInspector}{The Object Inspector}
\i \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer#ThePropertyEditor}{The Property Editor}
\i \l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode#ConnectionEditor}{The Signal/Slot Editor}
\i \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer#Toolbox Widgets}{Toolbox Widgets}
\i \l{Editing Resources with Qt Designer#UsingResources}{Using Resources}
\endlist

\section1 Legal Notices

Some source code in \QD is licensed under specific highly
permissive licenses from the original authors. Trolltech gratefully
acknowledges these contributions to \QD and all uses of \QD should
also acknowledge these contributions and quote the following license
statements in an appendix to the documentation.

\list
\i \l{Implementation of the Recursive Shadow Casting Algorithm in Qt Designer}
\endlist
*/

/*!
\page designer-getting-started.html
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\previouspage Qt Designer Manual
\nextpage Designing a Component with Qt Designer

\title Getting Started with Qt Designer

This manual covers the fundamental steps that most users will take when
creating graphical user interfaces with \QD. We will introduce the
main features of the tool by creating a simple dialog that we can use
in an example program.

\image designer-getting-started.png A simple dialog produced with \QD.

\target LaunchingDesigner
\section1 Launching Designer

The way that you launch \QD depends on your platform:

\list
\i On Windows, click the Start button, open the \e Programs submenu, open
the \e{Qt 4} submenu, and click \e Designer.
\i On Unix or Linux, you may find a \QD icon on the desktop background or
in the desktop start menu under the \e Programming or \e Development
submenus. You can launch \QD from this icon. Alternatively, you can
enter \c{designer} in a terminal window.
\i On Mac OS X, double click on \QD in the Finder.
\endlist

\target TheUserInterface
\section1 The User Interface

When used as a standalone application, \QD's user interface can be
configured to provide either a multi-window user interface (the default
mode), or it can be used in docked window mode. When used from within
an integrated development environment (IDE) only the multi-window user
interface is available. To switch modes, open the \e Preferences dialog
(\e Edit menu).

In multi-window mode, you can arrange each of the tool windows to suit
your working style. The main window consists of a menu bar, a tool bar,
and a widget box that contains the widgets you can use to create your
user interface.

\target MainWindow
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-main-window.png
\i \bold{\QD's Main Window}

The menu bar provides all the standard actions for managing forms,
using the clipboard, and accessing application-specific help.
The current editing mode, the tool windows, and the forms in use can
also be accessed via the menu bar.

The tool bar displays common actions that are used when editing a form.
These are also available via the main menu.

The widget box provides common widgets and layouts that are used to design
components. These are grouped into categories that reflect their uses or
features.
\endtable

Since Qt 4.4, you can customize your tool bar by clicking on \e Tools
and selecting \e{Configure Toolbars...} to bring up the
\gui{Customize Toolbars} dialog shown below.

\image designer-customize-toolbar.png

Use the \gui{Add Button} 
\inlineimage designer-add-custom-toolbar.png
 to add a custom tool bar and the \gui{Remove Button} 
\inlineimage designer-remove-custom-toolbar.png
 to remove a custom tool bar.

Most features of \QD are accessible via the menu bar, the tool bar, or the
widget box. Some features are also available through context menus that
can be opened over the form windows. On most platforms, the right mouse
button is used to open context menus.

\target WidgetBox
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-widget-box.png
\i \bold{\QD's Widget Box}

The widget box provides a selection of standard Qt widgets, layouts, and
other objects that can be used to create user interfaces on forms. Each
of the categories in the widget box contain widgets with similar uses or
related features.

\note Since Qt 4.4, there are some new widgets included, such as:
QPlainTextEdit, QCommandLinkButton, QScrollArea, QMdiArea and QWebView.

You can display all of the available objects in a category by clicking
on the handle next to the category label. When in \l{Qt Designer's
Widget Editing Mode}{Widget Editing Mode}, you can add objects to a
form by dragging the appropriate items from the widget box onto the
form, and dropping them in the required locations.

\QD provides a scratch pad feature that allows you to collect the most
commonly used objects in a separate category. This category will be
saved for later use when exiting \QD. The scratch pad category can be
filled with any widget currently displayed in a form by simply
dragging them from the form and dropping them onto the widget
box. These widgets can be used in the same way as any other widgets,
but in additon they can contain child widgets. Open a context menu
over a widget to change its name or remove it from the scratch pad.

\endtable

*/

/*!
\page designer-designing-a-component.html
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\previouspage Getting Started with Qt Designer
\nextpage Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode

\title Designing a Component with Qt Designer

\tableofcontents

In this chapter we will look at the main steps that users will take
when creating new graphical user interfaces with \QD. Usually,
creating a new component for an application will involve various
activities:

\list
\i Deciding which kind of component to use.
\i Composing the user interface by adding widgets from the widget box to
   the form.
\i Laying out the contents of the form.
\omit \i Setting the tab order of the widgets. \endomit
\i Connecting widgets together using their signals and slots.
\i Previewing the form.
\endlist

Users may find that they prefer to perform these activities in a
different order, and we expect that for complex widgets the design
process may involve many iterations of these steps. However, we present
each of the activities in the above order, and leave it up to the user
to find the approach that suits them best.

To demonstrate the processes used to create a new component, we will take
a look at the steps needed to create a simple widget with \QD. We use the
widget to illustrate certain features of the tool. General concepts are
explained in the gray boxes in each section, and you can follow links
from some of these to read more about the features being discussed.


\target CreatingAForm
\section1 Creating a Form

\QD can be used to create user interfaces for different purposes,
and it provides different kinds of form templates for each interface. The
first choice that you face when creating a new user interface is to decide
which kind of form you will be using; for example, you may require a group
of widgets instead of a dialog. New forms can be created by opening the
\gui File menu and selecting the \gui{New Form...} option, or by pressing
\key{Ctrl+N}.


\target ChoosingAForm
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-choosing-form.png
\i \bold{Choosing a Form}

\QD provides a number of template forms that are
suitable for different kinds of components. You can either choose one of
these templates or open a form that was saved earlier.

\note Since Qt 4.4, new base classes are provided for forms. Among them
are QDockWidget, QFrame, QGroupBox, QScrollArea, QMdiArea, QTabWidget,
QToolBox and QStackedWidget.

\endtable

If your requirements later change so that you need to supply a
different type of component, you can easily reuse the contents of your
existing form. For our example, we select the \gui{Widget} template,
and a form is created ready for use.


\target ComposingADialog
\section1 Composing a Dialog

The empty form is displayed as an empty dialog with a grid pattern overlayed
on the widget area in a style similar to many drawing packages.
\QD provides four different editing modes:

\target EditingModes
\table
\header \i \i \bold{Editing Modes}
\row \i \inlineimage designer-widget-tool.png
\i In \l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode}{Widget Editing Mode},
we can change the appearance of the form, add layouts, and edit the
properties of each widget.
\row \i \inlineimage designer-connection-tool.png
\i In \l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode}{Signals and Slots
Editing Mode}, we can connect widgets together using Qt's signals and slots
mechanism.
\row \i \inlineimage designer-buddy-tool.png
\i In \l{Qt Designer's Buddy Editing Mode}{Buddy Editing Mode}, buddy
widgets can be assigned to label widgets to help them handle keyboard
focus correctly.
\row \i \inlineimage designer-tab-order-tool.png
\i In \l{Qt Designer's Tab Order Editing Mode}{Tab Order Editing Mode},
we can set the order in which widgets receive the keyboard focus.
\endtable

We ensure that \QD is in widget editing mode by opening the \gui Edit menu
and selecting \gui{Edit Widgets}. This makes it possible for widgets to be
dragged from the widget box onto the form.

For our example, we will develop a widget that contains the controls
needed to manipulate Red, Green and Blue (RGB) values, a type of
widget can be seen everywhere in image manipulation programs.

Before we begin adding widgets to the form, it is useful to resize
it to give us the required amount of space to work with. We can make
the form larger than necessary because it can be resized later.

We start composing the dialog by placing some text labels onto the
form. This is achieved by dragging each \gui Label from the \gui
{Display Widgets} section of the widget box onto the form. We add three
\gui{Spin Boxes} and three \gui Sliders from the \gui{Input Widgets}
section.

Widgets can be moved around on the form by dragging them, or by using
the cursort keys. A widget can be resized by dragging the resize handles
that appear when it is selected - click the left mouse button over the
widget to select it. It can be helpful to resize \gui Label widgets so
that all of their text is displayed, but this is not necessary as they
will be displayed fully when we add them to a layout. It is useful to
place the widgets where they are needed on the form because it helps
you to visualize how it will appear when it is finished, but we do not
need to fine tune the positions of widgets - this task is the
responsibility of the form's layout objects which we will add later.


\target AddingWidgetsToAForm
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-widget-initial.png
\i \bold{Adding Widgets to a Form}

The widget initially contains other standard widgets, such as labels,
spin boxes and sliders. All the objects on the form can be freely
positioned.
\endtable

The sliders' and spin boxes' initial values and ranges can be changed
in the property editor, which can be accessed by opening the \gui Tools
menu in \QD's main window and selecting \gui{Property Editor}, or by
pressing \key{Ctrl+I}. The property editor always shows the properties
of the currently selected object, so we just need to select each of the
widgets in turn to access their properties.

Since RGB values range from 0 to 255, we change the \c minimum and
\c maximum values for the slider and spin boxes to 0 and 255
respectively. We also have to change the \c text property for each
label. The widget's window title can also be changed using the
property editor - click on the form itself to access the widget's
properties.

It is usually a good idea to give meaningful names to widgets in case
you want to connect their signals to slots in other components, or
refer to the widgets by name in your application.


\target ThePropertyEditor
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-property-editor-link.png
\i \bold{The Property Editor}

All designable widget properties can be edited in the
\l{designer-editing-mode.html#the-property-editor}{Property Editor}
window.

The properties can be edited by using the controls provided; the type of
control supplied for each property depends on the type of data it contains.
Any changes made to the widget's properties cause it to be updated
immediately.
\endtable

Once all the widgets are in position, they need to be placed into one or
more layouts. Layouts ensure that the widgets are the correct size, and
are correctly positioned on the form. This means that when the form is
resized, layouts will automatically shrink or enlarge its widgets
accordingly.

\target CreatingALayout
\section1 Creating a Layout

In Qt, widget positions and sizes are organized by layout managers. Before a
form can be used, it is necessary to put each of the widgets into layouts,
and then set the form's overall layout. \QD provides all the standard types
of layout, making it simple to experiment with different ways of arranging
components.

At any point during editing, we can experiment with the layout of widgets
on the form by selecting a group of objects and applying a layout to them.
Any of the standard Qt layouts (horizontal, vertical, grid, and form)
can be used. To apply a layout to a selection of objects, click the
appropriate icon in \QD's tool bar, or select the layout from the form's
context menu.

We begin laying out our RGB Controller widget by putting all the labels
along with their associated spin boxes and sliders into a
\gui{Grid Layout}. This layout divides available space into rows and
columns and puts widgets into its cells.


\target PlacingWidgetsInLayouts
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-widget-layout.png
\i \bold{Placing Widgets in Layouts}

The widgets are placed in the layout using as little space as
possible.

We will examine the use of layouts in more detail in
\l{designer-editing-mode.html}{Widget Editing Mode}.
\endtable

The property editor can also be used to change the appearance of
layouts on the form. To access the properties of a layout, we click
inside the layout, taking care not to click any of the widgets. The
\c layoutLeftMargin, \c layoutTopMargin, \c layoutRightMargin and
\c layoutBottomMargin properties control the thickness of the margin
around the edges of the layout, and \c layoutSpacing determines the
space between widgets. If the selected layout is of grid or form type
we can alter horizontal and vertical spacing independently using
\c layoutHorizontalSpacing and layoutVerticalSpacing properties.
By default, layout margins and spacings are not marked as changed.
In that case while using the component in a real application, the
values of those properties can differ from those used in \QD and
will depend on the application's QStyle.

We can create more complex layouts by selecting the layouts and
placing them into other layouts. But, in our example, we really only
need a top-level vertical layout to ensure that the dialog will appear
correctly. To do this, we click the form to ensure that no objects are
selected and then apply the vertical layout. The form may now be larger
than necessary, but we can resize it to make it smaller.

\image designer-widget-final.png

Once all the objects on the form have been placed in layouts, we can
concentrate on connecting them together using Qt's signals and slots
mechanism.

\target ConfiguringConnections
\section1 Configuring Connections

Objects on the form can be connected together using their signals and
slots, making it unnecessary to write code in your application to
connect many standard widgets together. In addition, \QD's signal and slot
editor provides a visual representation of the signal and slot
connections in the form that can help other developers understand how
the final component will behave.

We will show how to configure a connection by connecting the
\l{QSpinBox::valueChanged()}{valueChanged()} signal of the spin box
to its corresponding slider's
\l{QAbstractSlider::setValue()}{setValue()} slot.

We switch to signals and slots editing mode by opening the \gui Edit
menu and selecting \gui{Edit Signals/Slots}. The objects in the form will
now become highlighted as the cursor passes over them.


\target ConnectingWidgets
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-making-connection.png
\i \bold{Connecting Widgets}

To connect the spin box to the slider, we click on the spin box
and drag the cursor toward the slider; a line extends from the
spin box to the slider.
\endtable

When the cursor is over the slider, we release the mouse button
to complete the connection, and a dialog opens to allow us to choose
compatible signals and slots. Since the
\l{QSpinBox::valueChanged()}{valueChanged()} signal
and the \l{QAbstractSlider::setValue()}{setValue()} slot have
compatible signatures, we can use them together to update the slider
whenever the value in the spin box changes. To try this out, we can
open a preview of the widget by pressing \key{Ctrl+R} or by opening the
\gui Form menu and selecting \gui Preview.

For a reverse connection - updating the spin box when the slider handle
is moved, we have to connect the
\l{QAbstractSlider::valueChanged()}{valueChanged()} signal to the
\l{QSpinBox::setValue()}{setValue()} slot. This ensure that both widgets
update each other's values when either of their value changes.

\target PreviewingAForm
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-widget-preview.png
\i \bold{Previewing a Form}

When you preview a form, it appears just as it would in your application.
You can resize it to see how the layouts used to manage the child widgets
respond to different window sizes, and use this information to fine tune
the form's design.
\endtable

*/

/*!
\page designer-editing-mode.html
\previouspage Designing a Component with Qt Designer
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\nextpage Using Containers in Qt Designer

\title Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode

\image designer-editing-mode.png

In \QD's Widget Editing Mode, objects can be dragged from the main window's
widget box to a form, edited, resized, dragged around on the form, and even
dragged between forms. Their properties can be modified interactively, so
that changes can be seen immediately.
The editing interface is intuitive for simple operations, yet it still
supports Qt's powerful layout facilities.

\tableofcontents

\target ManagingForms
\section1 Managing Forms

\QD allows you to create and edit new forms (open the \gui File menu and
select \gui{New Form...} or press \key{Ctrl N}). Existing forms can also
be edited (open the \gui File menu and select \gui{Open Form...} or press
\key{Ctrl O}).

At any point, it is possible to save a form by selecting the
\gui {Save Form As...} option from the \gui {File} menu. The \c .ui files saved
by \QD contain information about the objects used, and record the details
of any signal and slot connections between them.

\target EditingAForm
\section1 Editing a Form

By default, new forms are opened in widget editing mode. If \QD is in another mode,
you can enter widget editing mode by opening the \gui Edit menu and selecting
\gui{Edit Widgets}, or by pressing the \key F3 key.

Objects are added to the form by dragging them from the main widget box
and dropping them in the desired location on the form. Once there,
they can be moved around simply by dragging them, or by using the
cursor keys. Pressing the \key Ctrl key at the same time moves the
selected widget pixel by pixel, while using the cursor keys alone
make the selected widget snap to the grid when it is moved. Objects
can be selected by clicking on them using the left mouse button. You
can also use the \key Tab key to change the selection.

The widget box contains objects in a number of different categories, all of
which can be simply placed on the form as required. The only objects that
require a little more preparation are the \gui Container widgets.
These are described in more detail in the \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer}
chapter.

\target SelectingObjects
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-selecting-widget.png
\i \bold{Selecting Objects}

Objects on the form are selected by clicking on them with the left mouse
button. When an object is selected, resize handles are shown at each corner
and at the midpoint of each side, indicating that it can be resized.

To select additional objects, hold down the \key Shift key and click on
them. If more than one object is selected, the current object will be
displayed with resize handles that are colored differently to the others.

If you would like to move a widget that is within a layout, holding down
\key Shift and \key Control while dragging the widget extends the
selection to its parent layout.

Alternatively, objects can be selected in the \l {The Object
Inspector}{Object Inspector}.
\endtable

When selected, the normal clipboard operations can be performed on a widget
to cut, copy, and paste it. All of these operations are recorded in an undo
buffer to enable changes to be undone and redone as necessary. The
shortcuts used to perform all of these actions are described in the table
below.

\target ShortcutsForEditing
\table
\header \i Action       \i Shortcut     \i Description
\row    \i Cut          \i \key{Ctrl+X} \i Cuts the selected objects to the
clipboard.
\row    \i Copy         \i \key{Ctrl+C} \i Copies the selected objects
to the clipboard.
\row    \i Paste        \i \key{Ctrl+V} \i Pastes the objects
in the clipboard onto the form.
\row    \i Delete       \i \key Delete  \i Deletes the selected objects.
\row    \i Clone object \i \key{Ctrl+drag} (leftmouse button)        \i Makes a copy of the selected object or group of objects.
\row    \i Preview      \i \key{Ctrl+R} \i Shows a preview of the form.
\endtable

All the above actions (apart from cloning) can be accessed via both the
\gui Edit menu and the form's context menu. These menus also provide a
\gui{Select All} function to select all the objects on the form. They also
provide functions for laying out objects.

Widgets are not unique objects; you can make as many copies of them as you
need. To quickly duplicate a widget, you can clone it by holding down the
\key Ctrl key and dragging it. This allows widgets to be copied and placed
on the form much more quickly than with clipboard operations.

\target DragAndDrop
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-dragging-onto-form.png
\i \bold{Drag and Drop}

\QD makes extensive use of the drag and drop
facilities provided by Qt. Widgets can be dragged from the widget box and dropped
onto the form.

Widgets can also be "cloned" on the form: Holding down \key Ctrl and dragging
the widget creates a copy of the widget that can be dragged to a new position.

It is also possible to drop Widgets onto the
\l {The Object Inspector}{Object Inspector} to ease handling of
nested layouts.
\endtable

\QD allows selections of objects to be copied, pasted, and dragged between
forms. You can use this feature to create more than one copy of the same
form, and experiment with different layouts in each of them.

\target ThePropertyEditor
\section1 The Property Editor

The Property Editor always displays the properties of
the currently selected object on the form. The properties available depend
on the object being edited, but all of the widgets provided have common
properties such as \l{QObject::}{objectName} (the object's internal name) and
\l{QWidget::}{enabled} (whether it can be interacted with).

\target EditingProperties
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-property-editor.png
\i \bold{Editing Properties}

The property editor uses standard Qt input widgets to manage the properties
of objects on the form. Textual properties are shown in line edits,
integer properties are displayed in spinboxes, boolean properties are
displayed in check boxes, and compound properties such as colors and sizes
are presented in drop-down lists of input widgets.

Modified properties are indicated by bold labels. To reset, click the arrow
button on the right-hand side.

Changes in properties are applied to all selected objects that have a
matching property.
\endtable

Certain properties are treated specially by the property editor:

\list
\o Compound properties - properties that are made up of more than one
value - are represented as nodes that can be expanded, enabling their
values to be edited.
\o Properties that contain a choice or selection of flags are edited
via combo boxes whose items can be checked.
\o Properties that allow access to rich data types, such as QPalette,
are modified using dialogs that open when the properties are edited.
QLabel and the widgets in the \gui Buttons section of the widget box
have a \c text property that can also be edited by double clicking on
the widget or by pressing \gui F2. \QD interprets the backslash (\\)
character specially, enabling newline (\\n) characters to be inserted
into the text; the \\\\ character sequence is used to insert a single
backslash into the text. A context menu can also be opened while editing,
providing another way to insert special characters and newlines into the
text.
\endlist

\section2 Dynamic Properties

The property editor can also be used to add new
\l{QObject#Dynamic Properties}{dynamic properties} to both standard
Qt widgets and to forms themselves. Since Qt 4.4, dynamic properties
are added and removed via the property editor's toolbar, shown below.

\image designer-property-editor-toolbar.png

To add a dynamic property, click on the \gui{Add Button}
\inlineimage designer-property-editor-add-dynamic.png
. To remove it, click on the \gui{Remove Button}
\inlineimage designer-property-editor-remove-dynamic.png
 instead. You can also sort the properties alphabetically and change
the colour groups by clicking on the \gui{Configure Button}
\inlineimage designer-property-editor-configure.png
.

\section1 The Object Inspector

The Object Inspector shows an up-to-date hierarchical list of the objects
(widgets, layouts, spacers, and other objects) on the form that is currently
being edited.

\target TheObjectInspector
\table
\row \i
\inlineimage designer-object-inspector.png
\i \bold{The Object Inspector}

The Object Inspector displays a hierarchical list of all the objects on the
form that is currently being edited. To show the child objects of a container
widget or a layout, click the handle next to the object label.

Each object on a form can be selected by clicking on the corresponding
item in the Object Inspector. Right-clicking opens the form's context menu.
These features can be useful if you have many overlapping objects.

Since Qt 4.4, double-clicking on the object's name allows you to change the
object's name with the in-place editor.
\endtable

\target Layouts
\section1 Layouts

Before the form can be used the objects on the form need to be placed into
layouts. This ensures that they will be displayed properly when the form is
previewed or deployed in an application. Placing objects in a layout also
ensures that they will be resized correctly when the form is resized.

\section2 Applying and Breaking Layouts

The simplest way to manage objects is to apply a layout to a group of
existing objects. This is achieved by selecting the objects that you
need to manage and applying one of the standard layouts using the main
toolbar, the \gui Form menu, or the form's context menu.

Once widgets have been inserted into a layout, it is not possible to
move and resize them individually because the layout itself controls
the geometry of each widget within it, taking account of the hints
provided by spacers. Instead, you must either break the layout and adjust
each object's geometry manually, or you can influence the widget's geometry
by resizing the layout. To break the layout you can press \key{Ctrl+0} or
choose \gui{Break Layout} from the form's context menu, the \gui Form menu
or the main toolbar. You can also add and remove spacers from the layout to
influence the geometries of the widgets.

\target InsertingObjectsIntoALayout
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-layout-inserting.png
\i \bold{Inserting Objects into a Layout}

Objects can be inserted into an existing layout by dragging them from
their current positions and dropping them at the required location.
A blue cursor is displayed in the layout as an object is dragged over it
to indicate where the object will be added.
\endtable

\section3 Setting A Top Level Layout

The form's top level layout can be set by clearing the selection (click
the left mouse button on the form itself) and applying a layout. A top
level layout is necessary to ensure that your widgets will resize correctly
when its window is resized. To check if you have set a top level layout,
preview your widget and attempt to resize the window by dragging the
size grip.

To apply a layout, you can select your choice of layout from the toolbar
\inlineimage designer-set-layout.png
 or you can use the context menu by clicking the left mouse button.
The context menu is shown below.

\image designer-set-layout2.png

\target HorizontalAndVerticalLayouts
\section2 Horizontal and Vertical Layouts

The simplest way to arrange objects on a form is to place them in a
horizontal or vertical layout. For example, the dialog shown at the
beginning of this chapter contains two push buttons and a spacer that
are placed in a horizontal layout; this makes sure that the buttons
remain next to each other when more layouts are added to the dialog.
In the same way, vertical layouts ensure that each of the widgets
within are aligned vertically.

Horizontal and vertical layouts can be combined, and nested to any depth.
However, if you need more control over the placement of objects, you
should consider using the grid layout.

\target TheGridLayout
\section2 The Grid Layout

Complex form layouts can be created by placed objects in a grid layout.
This kind of layout gives the form designer much more freedom to arrange
widgets on the form, but can result in a much less flexible layout.
However, for some kinds of form layout, a grid arrangement is much more
suitable than a nested arrangement of horizontal and vertical layouts.

\section2 Splitter Layouts

Another common way to manage the layout of objects on a form is to place
them in a splitter. These arrange the objects horizontally or vertically
in the same way as normal layouts, but also allow the user to adjust the
amount of space allocated to each object.

\image designer-splitter-layout.png Applying a splitter layout to selected widgets.

Although QSplitter is a container widget, \QD treats them as layouts that
are applied to existing widgets. To place a group of widgets into a
splitter, select them \l{#SelectingObjects}{as described above} then
apply the splitter layout by using the appropriate toolbar button,
keyboard shortcut, or \gui{Lay out} context menu entry.

\section2 The Form Layout

Since Qt 4.4, another layout class has been included - QFormLayout. This
class manages widgets in a two-column form; the left column holds labels
and the right column holds field widgets such as line edits, spin boxes,
etc. The QFormLayout class adheres to various platform look and feel
guidelines and supports wrapping for long rows.

\image designer-form-layout.png

The \c{.ui} file above results in the previews shown below.

\table
\header
    \o WindowsXP
    \o Mac OSX
    \o Cleanlooks
\row
    \o \inlineimage designer-form-layout-windowsXP.png
    \o \inlineimage designer-form-layout-macintosh.png
    \o \inlineimage designer-form-layout-cleanlooks.png

\endtable

\section2 Shortcut Keys

In addition to the standard toolbar and context menu entries, \QD defines a
set of keyboard shortcuts for applying layouts to widgets.

\target LayoutShortcuts
\table
\header \i Layout       \i Shortcut     \i Description
\row    \i Horizontal   \i \key{Ctrl+1} \i Places the selected objects in a
horizontal layout.
\row    \i Vertical     \i \key{Ctrl+2} \i Places the selected objects in a
vertical layout.
\row    \i Grid         \i \key{Ctrl+5} \i Places the selected objects in a
grid layout.
\row    \i Form         \i \key{Ctrl+6} \i Places the selected objects in a
form layout.
\row    \i Horizontal splitter \i \key{Ctrl+3} \i Creates a horizontal splitter
and places the selected objects inside it.
\row    \i Vertical splitter \i \key{Ctrl+4} \i Creates a vertical splitter
and places the selected objects inside it.
\row    \i Adjust size  \i \key{Ctrl+J} \i Adjusts the size of the layout
to ensure that each child object has sufficient space to display its contents.
See QWidget::adjustSize() for more information.
\endtable

\note \key{Ctrl+0} is used to break a layout.

\target PreviewingForms
\section1 Previewing Forms

Although \QD's forms are accurate representations of the components
being edited, it is useful to preview the final appearance while editing.
This feature can be activated by opening the \gui Form menu and selecting
\gui Preview, or by pressing \key{Ctrl+R} when in the form.

\image designer-dialog-preview.png

The preview shows exactly what the final component will look like when
used in an application.

Since Qt 4.4, it is possible to preview forms with various skins - default
skins, skins created with Qt Style Sheets or device skins. This feature
simulates the effect of calling \c{QApplication::setStyleSheet()} in the
application.

To preview your form with skins, open the \gui Edit menu and select
\gui Preferences...

You will see the dialog shown below:

\image designer-preview-style.png

The \gui{Print/Preview Configuration} checkbox must be checked to activate
previews of skins. You can select the styles provided from the \gui{Style}
drop-down box.

\image designer-preview-style-selection.png

Alternatively, you can preview custom style sheet created with Qt Style
Sheets. The figure below shows an example of Qt Style Sheet syntax and the
corresponding output.

\image designer-preview-stylesheet.png

Another option would be to preview your form with device skins. A list of
generic device skins are available in \QD, however, you may also use
other QVFB skins with the \gui{Browse...} option.

\image designer-preview-deviceskin-selection.png

The Trolltech-touchscreen device skin is shown below.

\image designer-preview-device-skin.png

\section1 Viewing the Form's Code

Since Qt 4.4, it is possible to view code generated by the User Interface
Compiler (uic) for the \QD form.

\image designer-form-viewcode.png

Select \e{View Code...} from the \e{Form} menu and a dialog with the generated
code will be displayed. The screenshot below is an example of code generated
by the uic.

\image designer-code-viewer.png

\section1 Saving and Printing the Form

Since Qt 4.4, forms created in \QD can be saved to an image or printed.

\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-file-menu.png
\i \bold{Saving Forms}

To save a form as an image, choose the \gui{Save Image...} option. The
file will be saved in \c{.png} format.

\bold{Printing Forms}

To print a form, select the \gui{Print...} option.

\endtable

*/

/*!
\page designer-using-containers.html
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\previouspage Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode
\nextpage Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer

\title Using Containers in Qt Designer

Container widgets provide high level control over groups of objects on a form.
They can be used to perform a variety of functions, such as managing input
widgets, providing paged and tabbed layouts, or just acting as decorative
containers for other objects.

Since many containers offer specialized functionality, they require a little
more explanation than ordinary widgets in order to make the most of them.

\tableofcontents

\section1 General Features

Since containers are designed to hold other objects, \QD provides visual
feedback to help you place objects inside them. When dragging an object
from the widget box or from elsewhere on the form, each container will become
highlighted as the cursor is positioned over it. This indicates that you
can drop the object inside, and that it will become a child object of the
container. This feedback is important because it is easy to place objects
close to containers without actually placing them inside. Both widgets
and spacers can be used inside containers.

Stacked widgets, tab widgets, and toolboxes are handled specially in
\QD. Normally, when adding pages (tabs, pages, compartments) to these
containers in your own code, you need to supply existing widgets, either
as placeholders or containing child widgets. In \QD, these are
automatically created for you, so you can add child objects to each page
straight away. New pages are added to each of these containers in the
same way: Select the container on the form, open the context menu, and
select \gui{Insert Page}. Then you are given the option of inserting the page
before or after the current page. To delete the current page, select the
container widget then select the \gui{Delete Page} from the context menu.

Each container typically allows its child objects to be arranged in
one or more layouts. The type of layout management provided depends on
each container, although setting the layout is usually just a matter of
selecting the container by clicking it, and applying a layout.

\section1 Frames

\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-containers-frame.png
\i \bold{Frames}

Frames are used to enclose and group widgets, and to provide decoration.
They are used as the foundation for more complex containers, but they
can also be used as placeholders in forms.

\endtable

The most important properties of frames are \c frameShape,
\c frameShadow, \c lineWidth, and \c midLineWidth. These are described
in more detail in the QFrame class description.

Each frame can contain its own layout. Select the frame and apply the
layout as usual.

\section1 Group Boxes

\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-containers-groupbox.png
\i \bold{Group Boxes}

Group boxes are usually used to group together collections of checkboxes
and radio buttons with similar purposes.

\endtable

The most important properties of group boxes are \c title, \c flat,
\c checkable, and \c checked. These are demonstrated in the
\l{widgets/groupbox}{Group Box} example, and described in the
QGroupBox class documentation.

Each group box can contain its own layout, and this is necessary if it
contains other widgets. To add a layout to the group box, click inside
it and apply the layout as usual.

\section1 Stacked Widgets

\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-containers-stackedwidget.png
\i \bold{Stacked Widgets}

Stacked widgets are collections of widgets in which only the topmost
layer is visible. Control over the visible layer is usually managed by
another widget, such as a combobox, using signals and slots.

\endtable

\QD shows arrows in the top-right corner of the stack to allow you to
see all the widgets in the stack; these do not appear in either the
preview or in the final component. To navigate between pages in the
stack, select the stacked widget and use the \gui{Next Page} and
\gui{Previous Page} entries from the context menu. The \gui{Insert Page}
and \gui{Delete Page} context menu options allow you add and remove
pages.

Each page in the stack can be given its own layout, and this is
necessary if the page contains other objects. To add a layout to
a page, click inside the widget and apply the layout as usual.

\section1 Tab Widgets

\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-containers-tabwidget.png
\i \bold{Tab Widgets}

Tab widgets allow the developer to split up the contents of a widget
into different labelled sections, only one of which is displayed at
any given time. By default, the tab widget contains two tabs, and
these can be deleted or renamed as required. You can also add additional
tabs.

\endtable

To delete a tab, make it the current tab by clicking on its label,
select the tab widget, open the context menu over the tab, and select
\gui{Delete Page}. To add a new tab, select the tab widget, open the
context menu, and select \gui{Insert Page}. Then you are given the
option of adding the page either before or after the \e current page.
\QD will create a new widget for that tab, and insert it into the tab
widget. The title of the current tab can be set by selecting the tab
widget, and changing the \c currentTabText property in the Property
Editor.

Each tab can be given its own layout, and one must be defined for each
tab that contains other objects. To add a layout to a tab, click inside
it and apply the layout as usual.

\section1 Toolbox Widgets

\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-containers-toolbox.png
\i \bold{ToolBox Widgets}

Toolbox widgets provide a series of pages or compartments in a toolbox,
much like the toolbox used in Qt 3's \QD. Toolboxes are handled in
much the same way as stacked widgets.

To rename a page in a toolbox, make it the current page, open the
Property Editor, and change the \c currentItemText property.
To add a new page, select the toolbox widget, open the context menu,
and select \gui{Insert Page}. Then you are given the option of adding
the page either before or after the current page.
To delete the current page, select the toolbox widget, open the context
menu, and select \gui{Delete Page}.
\endtable

Each page in the toolbox can be given its own layout, and this is
necessary if it contains other objects. To add a layout to a page,
click inside it and apply the layout as usual.

\section1 Dock Widgets

\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-containers-dockwidget.png
\i \bold{Dock Widgets}

Dock widgets are floating panels, often containing input widgets and more
complex controls, that are either attached to the edges of the main window
in "dock areas" or floated as independent tool windows.

Although dock widgets can be added to any type of form, they are typically
used with forms created from the
\l{Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer}{main window template}.
\endtable
*/

/*!
\page designer-creating-mainwindows.html
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\previouspage Using Containers in Qt Designer
\nextpage Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode

\title Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer

\omit
\image designer-mainwindow-template.png
\endomit

\QD can be used to create user interfaces for different purposes, and provides
different kinds of form templates for each of these. The main window template
is used to create application windows with menu bars, toolbars, and dock
widgets.

\tableofcontents

\section1 The Main Window Template

Create a new main window by opening the \gui File menu and select
the \gui {New Form...} option, or by pressing \key Ctrl+N.. Then select
the \gui {Main Window} template.

The template provides a main application window which contains
a menu bar and a toolbar by default; these can be removed if they are
not required.

If you remove the menu bar, a new one can be created by selecting the
\gui {Create Menu Bar} option from the context menu, obtained by
right-clicking within the main window form.

An application can only have one menu bar, but several toolbars can be
added.

\section1 Menus

Menus are added to the menu bar by modifying the \gui{Type Here} placeholders.
One of these is always present for editing purposes, and will not be
displayed in the preview or in the finished window.

Once created, the properties of a menu can be accessed using the
\l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode#The Property Editor}{Property Editor},
and each menu can be accessed for this purpose via the
\l{Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode#The Object Inspector}{The Object Inspector}.

Existing menus can be removed by opening a context menu over the
label in the menu bar, and selecting \gui{Remove Menu 'menu_name'}.

\target CreatingAMenu
\table
\row
\o \inlineimage designer-creating-menu1.png
\o \inlineimage designer-creating-menu2.png
\o \bold{Creating a Menu}

Double-click the placeholder item to start the editing process.

The menu text is displayed using a line edit, and can be modified.

\row
\o \inlineimage designer-creating-menu3.png
\o \inlineimage designer-creating-menu4.png
\o Insert the required text for the new menu. Inserting an ampersand
   character (&) causes the letter following it to be used as a
   mnemonic for the menu.

Press \key{Return} or \key{Enter} to accept the new text, or press
\key{Escape} to reject it. You can undo the editing operation later if
required.
\endtable

Menus can also be rearranged in the menu bar with simple drag and drop
operations. Simply click and drag the menu you want to move, and drop
it in the required location. A vertical red line indicates the position
where the menu will be inserted.

Menus can contain any number of entries and separators, and can be
nested to the required depth. Adding new entries to menus can be
achieved by navigating the menu structure in the usual way.

\target CreatingAMenuEntry
\table
\row
\o \inlineimage designer-creating-menu-entry1.png
\o \inlineimage designer-creating-menu-entry2.png
\o \bold{Creating a Menu Entry}

Double-click the \gui{new action} placeholder to start the editing process,
or double-click \gui{new separator} to insert a new separator line
after the last entry in the menu.

The menu entry's text is displayed using a line edit, and can be modified.

\row
\o \inlineimage designer-creating-menu-entry3.png
\o \inlineimage designer-creating-menu-entry4.png
\o Insert the required text for the new entry, optionally using the
   ampersand character (&) to mark the letter to use as a mnemonic for
   the entry.

Press \key{Return} or \key{Enter} to accept the new text, or press
\key{Escape} to reject it. The action created for this menu entry will
be accessible via the \l{#TheActionEditor}{Action Editor}, and any
associated keyboard shortcut can be set there.
\endtable

Just as with menus, entries can be moved around using drag and drop
operations. When an entry is dragged over a closed menu, the menu will
open to allow it to be inserted there. Since menu entries are based on
actions, they can also be dropped onto toolbars, where they will be
displayed as toolbar buttons.

\section1 Toolbars

Toolbars are added to a main window in a similar way to the menu bar:
Select the \gui {Add Tool Bar} option from the form's context menu.
Alternatively, if there is an existing toolbar in the main window, you
can click the arrow at its right-hand end to create a new toolbar.

Toolbar buttons are created by using the action system to populate each
toolbar, rather than by using specific button widgets from the widget box.
Since actions can be represented by menu entries and toolbar buttons, they
can be moved between menus and toolbars. To share an action between a
menu and a toolbar, drag its icon from the
\l{#TheActionEditor}{Action Editor} to the toolbar rather than from the
menu where its entry is located.

New actions for menus and toolbars can be created in the Action Editor.

\section1 Actions

With the menu bar and the toolbars in place, it's time to populate them with
actions: \QD provides an action editor to simplify the creation and management
of actions.

\target TheActionEditor
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-action-editor.png
\i \bold{The Action Editor}

Enable the action editor by opening the \gui Tools menu, and switching
on the \gui {Action Editor} option.

The action editor allows the user to create \gui New actions, as well as
deleting (\gui Delete) actions. It also provides a search facility
(\gui Filter) using the action's text.

Since Qt 4.4, \QD's action editor can be viewed in the classic Icon View
as well as Detailed View (\e{see screenshot}). You can also copy and paste
actions between menus, toolbars and forms.

\endtable

To create an action, use the action editor's \gui New button which will pop up
an input dialog. Provide the new action with a \gui Text. This is the text that
will appear in a menu entry and as the actions tooltip. The text is also automatically
added to an "action" prefix creating the action's \gui {Object Name}.

In addition, the dialog provides the option of selecting an \gui Icon for
the action, as well as removing the current icon.

Once the action is created, it can be used wherever actions are applicable.

\target AddingAnAction
\table
\row
\o \inlineimage designer-adding-menu-action.png
\o \inlineimage designer-adding-toolbar-action.png
\o \bold{Adding an Action}

To add an action to a menu or a toolbar, simply press the left mouse button over
the action in the action editor, and drag it to where it is required.

\QD provides highlighted guide lines that tell you where the action will be added.
Release the mouse button to add the action when you have found the right spot.
\endtable

\section1 Dock Widgets

Since dock widgets are \l{Using Containers in Qt Designer}{container widgets},
they can be added to a form in the usual way. When added to a form, dock widgets
are not placed in any particular dock area by default; you need to set the
\gui{docked} property to true for each widget and choose an appropriate value for
its \gui{dockWidgetArea} property.

\target AddingADockWidget
\table
\row
\o \inlineimage designer-adding-dockwidget.png
\o \bold{Adding a Dock Widget}

To add a dock widget, simply drag one from the \gui{Containers} section of the
widget box, and drop it onto the main form area. Just as with other widgets, its
properties can be modified with the Property Editor.

Since dock widgets can be optionally floated as independent tool windows, it is
useful to give them window titles by setting their \gui{windowTitle} properties.
This also helps to identify them on the form.
\endtable
*/


/*!
\page designer-connection-mode.html
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\previouspage Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer
\nextpage Qt Designer's Buddy Editing Mode

\title Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode

\image designer-connection-mode.png

\QD's signals and slots editing mode allows objects in a form to be connected
together using Qt's signals and slots mechanism. Both widgets and layout
objects can be connected via an intuitive connection interface, and \QD
will present a menu of compatible signals and slots to use for each
connection made. When the form is saved, the connections are preserved
so that they will be ready for use when your project is built.

\tableofcontents

\target ConnectingObjects
\section1 Connecting Objects

To begin connecting objects, enter the signals and slots editing mode by opening the
\gui Edit menu and selecting \gui{Edit Signals/Slots}, or by pressing
the \key F4 key.
All widgets and layout objects on the form can be connected together.
Spacers just provide spacing hints to layouts, so they cannot be connected
to other objects.

\target HighlightedObjects
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-connection-highlight.png
\i \bold{Highlighted Objects}

When the cursor is over an object that can be used in a
connection, the object will be highlighted. To make a connection, press
the left mouse button, and drag the cursor towards the object you want to
connect it to.

\endtable

To make a connection, hold down the left mouse button over a highlighted
object, and drag the cursor towards the object you want to connect it to.
As you do this, a line will extend from the source object to the cursor.
If the cursor is over another object on the form, the line will end with
an arrow head that points to the destination object, indicating that a
connection will be made between the two objects when you release the
mouse button.

You can abandon the connection at any point while you are dragging the
connection path by pressing \key{Esc}.

\target MakingAConnection
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-connection-making.png
\i \bold{Making a Connection}

The connection path changes shape as the cursor moves around the form.
As it passes over objects, they are highlighted, indicating that they
can be used in a signal and slot connection. Release the mouse button
to make the connection.
\endtable

When you are satisfied that the correct objects will be connected, release
the mouse button to make the connection. A dialog displays the signals
from the source object and the slots from the destination object that
can be used to connect the two objects.

To complete the connection, select a signal from the source object and a
slot from the destination object, then click the \gui OK button. Click
\gui Cancel if you wish to abandon the connection.

\target ChoosingSignalsAndSlots
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-connection-dialog.png
\i \bold{Choosing Signals and Slots}

The \bold{Configure Connection} dialog presents the signals that can be
emitted by the source object alongside a list of compatible slots in the
destination object. When you select a signal, the dialog automatically
updates the list of compatible slots to ensure that a valid connection
is made.

If the \bold{Show all signals and slots} checkbox is selected, all
available signals from the source object are shown. Otherwise the
signals and slots inherited from QWidget is hidden.
\endtable

You can make as many connections as you like between objects on the form,
and it is possible to connect signals from objects to slots in the form
itself. As a result, the signal and slot connections in many dialogs can
be completely configured from within \QD.

\target ConnectingToTheForm
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-connection-to-form.png
\i \bold{Connecting to a Form}

Connections can be made between objects on the form and the form itself.
Instead of dragging a connection path to another object, position the
cursor over the form and release the mouse button.

To make it clear that the connection will be made with the form itself,
the end point of the connection changes to an electrical "ground" symbol.
\endtable

\target EditingConnections
\section1 Editing and Deleting Connections

By default, connection paths are created with two labels that show
the signal and slot involved in the connection. These labels are usually
oriented along the line of the connection, and they can be moved around
inside their host widgets by dragging the red square at each end of the
connection path.

\target ConnectionEditor
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-connection-editor.png
\i \bold{The Signal/Slot Editor}

The signal and slot used in a connection can be changed after it has
been set up. When a connection is configured, it becomes visible in
\QD's signal and slot editor where it can be further edited.

\endtable

In addition to using the signal and slot editor, you can edit the
connection by simply double clicking on the connection path or one
of its labels, and select the signal and slot to be used in the
connection dialog.

\target DeletingConnections
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-connection-editing.png
\i \bold{Deleting Connections}

The whole connection can be selected by clicking on any of the path
segments. Once selected, connections can be deleted with the \key Delete
key, and they will not be set up in the .ui file.
\endtable
*/

/*!
\page designer-buddy-mode.html
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\previouspage Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode
\nextpage Qt Designer's Tab Order Editing Mode

\title Qt Designer's Buddy Editing Mode

\image designer-buddy-mode.png

One of the most useful basic features of Qt is the support for buddy widgets.
At the simplest level, a buddy widget accepts the input focus on behalf on
a QLabel when the user types the label's shortcut key combination. The buddy
concept is also used in Qt's \l{Model/View Programming}{model/view} framework.

\tableofcontents

\section1 Linking Labels to Buddy Widgets

To enter buddy editing mode, open the \gui Edit menu and select \gui{Edit Buddies}.
This mode presents the widgets on the form in a similar way to the
\l{Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode}{signals and slots editing mode}
except that, in this mode, connections must start at label widgets. Ideally, you
should connect each label widget that provides a shortcut with a suitable input
widget, such as a QLineEdit.

\target MakingBuddies
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-buddy-making.png
\i \bold{Making Buddies}

To define a buddy widget for a label, click on the label, drag the
connection to another widget on the form, and release the mouse button.
The connection shown indicates how the input focus is passed to the
buddy widget.

You can use the \l{Designing a Component with Qt Designer#PreviewingAForm}{form
preview} to test the connections between each label and its buddy.
\endtable

\section1 Removing Buddy Connections

Only one buddy widget can be defined for each label. To change the buddy
used, it is therefore necessary to delete any existing buddy connection and
create a new one.

Connections between labels and their buddy widgets can be deleted in the
same way as signal-slot connections in signals and slots editing mode: Select the buddy
connection by clicking on it, and press the \key Delete key. This
operation does not modify either the label or its buddy in any way.
*/

/*!
\page designer-tab-order.html
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\previouspage Qt Designer's Buddy Editing Mode
\nextpage Editing Resources with Qt Designer

\title Qt Designer's Tab Order Editing Mode

\image designer-tab-order-mode.png

Many users expect to be able to navigate between widgets and controls using only
the keyboard. Qt lets the user navigate between input widgets with the \key Tab
and \key{Shift-Tab} keyboard shortcuts. The default \e{tab order} is based on
the order in which widgets are constructed and, although this order may be
sufficient for many users, it is often better to explictly specify the tab order
to make your application easier to use.

\section1 Setting the Tab Order

To enter tab order editing mode, open the \gui Edit menu and select \gui{Edit Tab
Order}. In this mode, each input widget in the form is shown with a number
indicating its position in the tab order. So, if the user gives the first input
widget the input focus then presses the tab key, the focus will move to the
second input widget, and so on.

The tab order is defined by clicking on each of the numbers in the correct
order. The first number you click will change to red, indicating the currently
edited position in tab order chain, and the widget associated
with the number will become the first one in the tab order chain.
Clicking on another widget will make it the second in the tab order, and so on.
You can continue this process until you are satisfied with the tab order in
the form - you do not need to click every input widget if you see that the
remaining widget are already in the correct order. Numbers, for which you
already set the order, change to green, while those which were not clicked yet,
remain blue.

If you make a mistake, simply double click outside of any number or choose
"Restart" action from the form's context menu to start again. If you have many
widgets on your form and want to change the order in the middle or by the end of
tab order chain, you can start edit tab order chain at any position you wish.
Just press the control modifier and click the number from which
you want to start, or alternatively choose "Start from Here" action from
context menu.
*/

/*!
\page designer-resources.html
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\previouspage Qt Designer's Tab Order Editing Mode
\nextpage Using Stylesheets with Qt Designer

\title Editing Resources with Qt Designer

\image designer-resources-editing.png

\QD fully supports the \l{The Qt Resource System}{Qt Resource System},
allowing resources to be specified alongside forms as they are designed.
To help designers and developers manage the resources that are needed by
applications, \QD's resource editor allows resources to be defined on a
per-form basis.

\section1 Defining a Resource File

To specify a resource file you must enable the resorce editor by
opening the \gui Tools menu, and switching on the
\gui{Resource Browser} option.

\target ResourceFiles
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-resource-browser.png
\i \bold{Resource Files}

Using the resource browser, you can either open existing resource files or
create new ones. Click the \gui {Edit Resources} button
\inlineimage designer-edit-resources-button.png
 to edit your resources. You can also reload resources by clicking on
the \gui {Reload} button
\inlineimage designer-reload-resources-button.png
.

\endtable

Once a resource file is loaded, you can create or remove entries in the
file using the provided  \gui {Add Files}
\inlineimage designer-add-resource-entry-button.png
 and \gui {Remove Files}
\inlineimage designer-remove-resource-entry-button.png
 buttons, and specify resources
(for example images) using the \gui {Add Files} button
\inlineimage designer-add-files-button.png
. Note that these resources must reside within the current resource
file's directory or one of its subdirectories.

\target EditResource
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-edit-resource.png
\i \bold{Editing Resource Files}

Press the
\inlineimage designer-add-resource-entry-button.png
 button to add a new resource entry to the file. Then use the
\gui {Add Files} button
\inlineimage designer-add-files-button.png
 to specify the resource.

You can remove resources by selecting the corresponding entry in the resource
editor, and press the
\inlineimage designer-remove-resource-entry-button.png
 button.

\endtable

\section1 Using the Resources

When the resources are defined you can use them actively when composing your
form. For example, you might want to create a tool button using an icon
specified in the resource file.

\target UsingResources
\table
\row
\i \inlineimage designer-resources-using.png
\i \bold{Using Resources}

When changing properties which have values that may be defined within a
resource file, \QD's property editor allows you to specify a resource in
addition to the option of selecting a source file in the ordinary way.

\row
\i \inlineimage designer-resource-selector.png
\i \bold{Selecting a Resource}

You can open the resource selector by clicking \gui{Choose Resource...} to
add resources any time in the design process.

\omit
... check with Friedemann
To quickly assign icon pixmaps to actions or pixmap properties, you may
drag the pixmap from the resource editor to the action editor, or to the
pixmap property in the property editor.
\endomit

\endtable
*/

/*!
    \page designer-stylesheet.html
    \contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
    \previouspage Editing Resources with Qt Designer
    \nextpage Using Custom Widgets with Qt Designer

    \title Using Stylesheets with Qt Designer

    Since Qt 4.2, it is possible to edit stylesheets in \QD with
    the stylesheet editor.

    \target UsingStylesheets
    \table
    \row
    \i \inlineimage designer-stylesheet-options.png
    \bold{Setting a Stylesheet}

    The stylesheet editor can be accessed by right-clicking a widget
    and selecting \gui{Change styleSheet...}

    \row
    \i \inlineimage designer-stylesheet-usage.png

    \endtable



*/

/*!
    \page designer-customizing-forms.html
    \contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
    \previouspage Using Stylesheets with Qt Designer
    \nextpage Using Custom Widgets with Qt Designer

    \title Customizing Qt Designer Forms

    \image designer-form-settings.png

    When saving a form in \QD, it is stored as an \c .ui file. Several form
    settings, for example the grid settings or the margin and spacing for the default layout,
    are stored along with the form's components. These settings are used when the
    \l uic generates the form's C++ code.
    For more information on how to use forms in your application, see
    the \l {Using Forms and Components} section.

    \section1 Modifying the Form Settings

    To modify the form settings, open the \gui Form menu and select \gui
    {Form Settings...}

    In the forms settings dialog you can specify the \gui Author of
    the form.

    You can also alter the margin and spacing
    properties for the form's default layout (\gui {Layout Default}).
    These default layout properties will be replaced by the corresponding
    \gui {Layout Function}, if the function is specified, when \c uic
    generates code for the form. The form settings dialog
    lets you specify functions for both the margin and the spacing.

    \target LayoutFunction
    \table
    \row
    \i \inlineimage designer-form-layoutfunction.png
    \i \bold{Layout Function}

    The default layout properties will be replaced by the corresponding
    \gui {Layout Function}, when \c uic generates code for the form.

    This is useful when different environments requires different layouts for the same form.

    To specify layout functions for the form's margin and spacing, check the \gui {Layout
    Function} group box to enable the line edits.

    \endtable

    You can also specify the form's \gui {Include Hints}; i.e. provide a list
    of the header files which then will be included in the form window's
    associated \c .ui file. Header files may be local, i.e. relative
    to the project's directory, \c "mywidget.h", or global, i.e. part of
    Qt or the compilers standard libraries: \c <QtGui/QWidget>.

    Finally, you can specify the function used to
    load pixmaps into the form window (the \gui {Pixmap Function}).
*/

/*!
    \page designer-using-custom-widgets.html
    \contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
    \previouspage Customizing Qt Designer Forms
    \nextpage Using a Component in Your Application

    \title Using Custom Widgets with Qt Designer

    \QD can display custom widgets through its extensible plugin
    mechanism, allowing the range of designable widgets to be
    extended by the user and third parties. This feature also allows
    \QD to optionally support \l{Qt3Support}{Qt 3 compatibility
    widgets}. Alternatively, it is possible to use existing widgets
    as placeholders for widget classes that provide similar APIs.

    \tableofcontents

    Widgets from the Qt3Support library are made available via in \QD's
    support for custom widgets.

    \section1 Handling Custom Widgets

    Although \QD supports all of the standard Qt widgets, and can be configured
    to handle widgets supplied in the Qt3Support library, some specialized
    widgets may not be available as standard for a number of reasons:

    \list
    \i Custom widgets may not be available at the time the user interface is being designed.
    \i Custom widgets may be platform-specific, and designers may be developing
       the user interface on a different platform to end users.
    \i The source code for a custom widget is not available, or the user interface
       designers are unable to use the widget for non-technical
       reasons.
    \endlist

    In the above situations, it is still possible to design forms with the aim
    of using custom widgets in the application. To achieve this, we can use
    the widget promotion feature of \QD.

    In all other cases, where the source code to the custom widgets is
    available, we can adapt the custom widget for use with \QD.

    \section2 Promoting Widgets

    \image designer-promoting-widgets.png

    In the case where forms must be designed, but where certain custom
    widgets are unavailable to the designer, we can substitute similar
    widgets to represent the missing widgets. For example, we might
    represent instances of a custom push button class, \c
    MyPushButton, with instances of QPushButton and promote these to
    \c MyPushButton so that \l{uic.html}{uic} generates suitable code
    for this missing class.

    When choosing a widget to use as a placeholder, it is useful to compare the
    API of the missing widget with those of standard Qt widgets. For specialized
    widgets that subclass standard classes, the obvious choice of placeholder
    is the base class of the custom widget; for example, QSlider might be
    used for specialized QSlider subclasses.

    For specialized widgets that do not share a common API with standard Qt
    widgets, it is worth considering adapting a custom widget for use in \QD.
    If this is not possible then QWidget is the obvious choice for a placeholder
    widget since it is the lowest common denominator for all widgets.

    To add a placeholder, select an object of a suitable base class
    and choose \gui{Promote to ...} from the form's context menu.
    After entering the class name and header file in the lower part
    of the dialog, choose \gui{Add}. The placeholder class will
    now appear along with the base class in the upper list.
    Click the \gui{Promote} button to accept this choice.

    Now, when the form's context menu is opened over objects of the base class,
    the placeholder class will appear in the \gui{Promote to} submenu,
    allowing for convenient promotion of objects to that class.

    A promoted widget can be reverted to its base class by choosing
    \gui{Demote to} from the form's context menu.

    \section2 User Defined Custom Widgets

    \image worldtimeclockplugin-example.png

    Custom widgets can be adapted for use with \QD, giving designers the
    opportunity to configure the user interface using the actual widgets
    that will be used in an application rather than placeholder widgets.

    The process of creating a custom widget plugin is described in the
    \l{Creating Custom Widgets for Qt Designer} chapter of this manual.

    To use a plugin created in this way, it is necessary to ensure that
    it is located on a path that \QD searches for plugins. Generally,
    plugins stored in \c{$QTDIR/plugins/designer} will be loaded when
    \QD starts. Further information on building and installing plugins
    can be found
    \l{Creating Custom Widgets for Qt Designer#BuildingandInstallingthePlugin}{here}.
    You can also refer to the \l{How to Create Qt Plugins}{Plugins HOWTO}
    document for information about creating plugins.
*/

/*!
\page designer-using-a-component.html
\previouspage Using Custom Widgets with Qt Designer
\contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
\nextpage Creating Custom Widgets for Qt Designer

\title Using a Component in Your Application

\tableofcontents

With Qt's integrated build tools, \l{qmake-manual.html}{qmake} and
\l uic, the code for user interface components created
with \QD is automatically generated when the rest of your
application is built. Forms can be included and used directly from
your application, or you can use them to extend subclasses of
standard widgets. These forms can be processed at compile time or
at run time, depending on the approach used.

\target CompileTimeFormProcessing
\section1 Compile Time Form Processing

A compile time processed form can be used in your application with
any of the following approaches:

\list
\o In the direct approach, you simply construct a widget to use as a
placeholder for the component, and set up the user interface inside it.
\o In the single inheritance approach, you subclass the form's base class
(QWidget or QDialog, for example), and include a private instance of
the form's user interface object.
\o In the multiple inheritance approach, you subclass from both the
form's base class and the form's user interface object. This allows the
widgets defined in the form to be used directly from within the scope of
the subclass.
\endlist

\target TheDirectApproach
\section2 The Direct Approach

To demonstrate how user interface components can be used straight from
\QD, we create a simple Calculator Form application, based on the original
\l{Calculator Form Example}{Calculator Form} example.

The application consists of one source file, \c main.cpp, and a \c{.ui} file.

The \c{calculatorform.ui} file designed with \QD is shown below:

\image directapproach-calculatorform.png

We will use \c qmake to build the executable, so we need to write a \c .pro
file:

\snippet doc/src/snippets/uitools/calculatorform/calculatorform.pro 0

The special feature of this file is the \c FORMS declaration that tells
\c qmake which files it needs to process with \c uic. In this case,
the \c calculatorform.ui file is used to create a \c ui_calculatorform.h
file that can be used by any files listed in the \c SOURCES declaration.
To ensure that \c qmake generates the \c ui_calculatorform.h file, we need
to include it in a file listed in \c SOURCES. Since we only have
\c main.cpp, we include it there:

\snippet doc/src/snippets/uitools/calculatorform/main.cpp 0

This additional check ensures that we do not generate code for \e .ui
files that are not used.

The \c main function creates the calculator widget by constructing a standard
QWidget that we use to host the user interface described by the
\c calculatorform.ui file.

\snippet doc/src/snippets/uitools/calculatorform/main.cpp 1

In this case, the \c{Ui::CalculatorForm} is an interface description object
from the \c ui_calculatorform.h file that sets up all the dialog's widgets
and the connections between its signals and slots.

This approach provides a quick and easy way to use simple, self-contained
components in your applications, but many components created with \QD
will need to be integrated more closely with the rest of the application
code. For instance, the \c CalculatorForm code provided above will compile
and run, but the QSpinBox objects will not interact with the QLabel as
we require a custom slot to carry out the add operation and display the
result in the QLabel. To achieve this, we need to subclass a standard
Qt widget.

\target TheSingleInheritanceApproach
\section2 The Single Inheritance Approach

In this approach, we subclass a Qt widget and set up the user interface from
within the constructor. Components used in this way expose the widgets and
layouts used in the form to the Qt widget subclass, and provide a standard
system for making signal and slot connections between the user interface and
other objects in your application.

This approach is used in the \l{Calculator Form Example}{Calculator Form}
example.

To ensure that we can use the user interface, we need to include the
header file that \c uic generates before referring to \c{Ui::CalculatorForm}:

\snippet examples/designer/calculatorform/calculatorform.h 0

This means that the \c{.pro} file must be updated to include
\c{calculatorform.h}:

\snippet examples/designer/calculatorform/calculatorform.pro 0

The subclass is defined in the following way:

\snippet examples/designer/calculatorform/calculatorform.h 1

The important feature of the class is the private \c ui object
which provides the code for setting up and managing the user
interface.

The constructor for the subclass constructs and configures all the
widgets and layouts for the dialog just by calling the \c ui object's
\c setupUi() function. Once this has been done, it is possible to modify
the user interface as needed.

\snippet examples/designer/calculatorform/calculatorform.cpp 0

We can connect signals from the user interface widgets to slots in the
widget in the usual way, taking care to prefix the \c ui object to
each widget used.

The main advantages of this approach are its simple use of inheritance
to provide a QWidget-based interface, and its encapsulation of the
user interface widget variables within the \c ui data member.
We can use this method to define a number of user interfaces within the
same widget, each of which is contained within its own namespace,
and overlay (or "compose") them. This approach can be used to create
individual tabs from existing forms, for example.

\target TheMultipleInheritanceApproach
\section2 The Multiple Inheritance Approach

Forms created with \QD can be subclassed along with a standard
QWidget-based class. This approach makes all the user interface
components defined in the form directly accessible within the scope of
the subclass, and enables signal and slot connections to be made in
the usual way with the \l{QObject::connect()}{connect()} function.

This approach is used in the \l{Multiple Inheritance Example}
{Multiple Inheritance} example.

We need to include the header file that \c uic generates from the
\c calculatorform.ui file:

\snippet examples/uitools/multipleinheritance/calculatorform.h 0

The class is defined in a similar way to the one used in the private
interface approach, except that this time we inherit from both QWidget
and \c{Ui::CalculatorForm}:

\snippet examples/uitools/multipleinheritance/calculatorform.h 1

We inherit \c{Ui::CalculatorForm} privately to ensure that the user
interface objects are private in our subclass. We can also inherit
it with the \c public or \c protected keywords in the same way that
we could have made \c ui public or protected in the previous case.

The constructor for the subclass performs many of the same tasks as
the constructor used in the private interface example:

\snippet examples/uitools/multipleinheritance/calculatorform.cpp 0

In this case, the widgets used in the user interface can be accessed
in the same way as a widget created in code by hand. We no longer require
the \c{ui} prefix to access them.

Subclassing using multiple inheritance gives us more direct access
to the contents of the form, is slightly cleaner than the single
inheritance approach, but does not conveniently support composition of
multiple user interfaces.

\target RunTimeFormProcessing
\section1 Run Time Form Processing

Alternatively, forms can be processed at run time, producing
dynamically-generated user interfaces. This can be done using the QtUiTools
module, which provides the QUiLoader class to handle forms created with \QD.

\section2 The UiTools Approach

A resource file containing a \c{.ui} file is required to process forms at
run time. Also, the application needs to be configured to use the
QtUiTools module. This is done by including the following
declaration in a qmake project file, ensuring that the application is
compiled and linked appropriately.

\snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 0

The QUiLoader class provides a form loader object to construct the user
interface. This user interface can be retrieved from any QIODevice
(a QFile object for example) to obtain a form stored in a project's
resources. The QUiLoader::load() function constructs the form widget using
the user interface description contained in the file.

The QtUiTools module classes can be included using the following directive:

\snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 1

The QUiLoader::load() function is invoked as shown in this code from the
\l{Text Finder Example}{Text Finder} example:

\snippet examples/uitools/textfinder/textfinder.cpp 4

In a class that uses QtUiTools to build its user interface at run time,
we can locate objects in the form using qFindChild(). For example, in
the following code, we locate some components based on their object
names and widget types:

\snippet examples/uitools/textfinder/textfinder.cpp 1

Processing forms at run-time gives the user the freedom to change a
program's user interface, just by changing the \c{.ui} file. This is
useful when customizing programs to suit various user needs.

\target AutomaticConnections
\section1 Automatic Connections

The signals and slots connections defined for compile time or run time
forms can either be set up manually or automatically, using QMetaObject's
ability to make connections between signals and suitably-named slots.

Generally, in a QDialog, if we want to process the information entered
by the user before accepting it, we need to connect the clicked()
signal from the \gui OK button to a custom slot in our dialog.
We will first show an example of the dialog in which the slot is
connected by hand then compare it with a dialog that uses automatic
connection.

\target ADialogWithoutAutoConnect
\section2 A Dialog Without Auto-Connect

We define the dialog in the same way as before, but now include a
slot in addition to the constructor:

\snippet doc/src/snippets/designer/noautoconnection/imagedialog.h 0

The \c checkValues() slot will be used to validate the values provided
by the user.

In the dialog's constructor we set up the widgets as before, and connect
the \gui Cancel button's \l{QPushButton::clicked()}{clicked()} signal to the
dialog's reject() slot. We also disable the \l{QPushButton::autoDefault}
{autoDefault} property in both buttons to ensure that the dialog does not
interfere with the way that the line edit handles return key events:

\snippet doc/src/snippets/designer/noautoconnection/imagedialog.cpp 0
\dots
\snippet doc/src/snippets/designer/noautoconnection/imagedialog.cpp 1

We connect the \gui OK button's \l{QPushButton::clicked()}{clicked()} signal
to the dialog's checkValues() slot which we implement as follows:

\snippet doc/src/snippets/designer/noautoconnection/imagedialog.cpp 2

This custom slot does the minimum necessary to ensure that the data
entered by the user is valid - it only accepts the input if a name
was given for the image.

\target WidgetsAndDialogsWithAutoConnect
\section2 Widgets and Dialogs with Auto-Connect

Although it is easy to implement a custom slot in the dialog and
connect it in the constructor, we could instead use QMetaObject's
auto-connection facilities to connect the \gui OK button's clicked()
signal to a slot in our subclass. \c{uic} automatically generates
code in the dialog's \c setupUi() function to do this, so we only need
to declare and implement a slot with a name that follows a standard
convention:

\snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 2

Using this convention, we can define and implement a slot that responds
to mouse clicks on the \gui OK button:

\snippet doc/src/snippets/designer/autoconnection/imagedialog.h 0

Another example of automatic signal and slot connection would be the
\l{Text Finder Example}{Text Finder} with its \c{on_findButton_clicked()}
slot.

We use QMetaObject's system to enable signal and slot connections:

\snippet examples/uitools/textfinder/textfinder.cpp 2

This enables us to implement the slot, as shown below:

\snippet examples/uitools/textfinder/textfinder.cpp 6

\dots

\snippet examples/uitools/textfinder/textfinder.cpp 8

Automatic connection of signals and slots provides both a standard
naming convention and an explicit interface for widget designers to
work to. By providing source code that implements a given interface,
user interface designers can check that their designs actually work
without having to write code themselves.

*/

/*!
    \page designer-creating-custom-widgets.html
    \previouspage Using a Component in Your Application
    \contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}
    \nextpage Creating Custom Widget Extensions

    \title Creating Custom Widgets for Qt Designer

    \QD's plugin-based architecture allows user-defined and third party custom
    widgets to be edited in the same way as standard Qt widgets. All the features
    of the custom widgets are made available to \QD, including widget properties,
    signals, and slots. Since \QD uses real widgets during the form design process,
    custom widgets will appear the same as they do when previewed.

    \image worldtimeclockplugin-example.png

    The ability to create custom widgets in \QD is one of the features provided
    by the \l QtDesigner module.

    \tableofcontents

    \section1 Getting Started

    The process of integrating an existing custom widget with \QD usually
    just requires a suitable description for the widget and an appropriate
    project file.

    \section1 Providing an Interface Description

    To inform \QD about the type of widget we want to provide, we must create
    a subclass of QDesignerCustomWidgetInterface that describes the various
    properties it exposes. Most of these are supplied by functions that are
    pure virtual in the base class because it only makes sense for the author
    of the plugin to provide this information.

    \table
    \header
    \o Function
    \o Description of the return value
    \row \o \c name()
         \o The name of the class that provides the widget.
    \row \o \c group()
         \o The group in \QD's widget box that the widget belongs to.
    \row \o \c toolTip()
         \o A short description to help users identify the  widget in \QD.
    \row \o \c whatsThis()
         \o A longer description of the widget for users of \QD.
    \row \o \c includeFile()
         \o The header file that must be included in applications
            that use this widget. This information is stored in .ui files
            and will be used by \c uic to create a suitable \c{#includes}
            statement in the code it generates for the
            form containing the custom widget.
    \row \o \c icon()
         \o An icon that can be used to represent the widget in \QD's widget
            box.
    \row \o \c isContainer()
         \o True if the widget will be used to hold child widgets; otherwise
            false.
    \row \o \c createWidget()
         \o A QWidget pointer to an instance of the custom widget, constructed
            with the parent supplied.
    \row \o \c domXml()
         \o A description of the widget's properties, such as its object
            name, size hint, and other standard QWidget properties.
    \row \o \c codeTemplate()
         \o This function is reserved for future use by \QD.
    \endtable

    Two other virtual functions can also be reimplemented:

    \table
    \row    \o \c initialize()    \o Sets up extensions and other features for custom
                                     widgets. Custom container extensions (see
                                     QDesignerContainerExtension) and task menu extensions
                                     (see QDesignerTaskMenuExtension) should be set up in
                                     this function.
    \row    \o \c isInitialized() \o Returns true if the widget has been initialized;
                                     otherwise returns false. Reimplementations usually
                                     check whether the initialize() function has been
                                     called and return the result of this test.
    \endtable

    \section2 Notes on the \c{domXml()} Function

    The \c{domXml()} function returns a \c{.ui} file snippet that is used by
    \QD's widget factory to create a custom widget and its applicable
    properties.

    Since Qt 4.4, \QD's widget box allows for a complete UI file describing
    \bold one custom widget. The UI file can be loaded using the \c{<ui>} tag.
    Specifying the <ui> tag allows for adding the <customwidget> element
    that contains additional information for custom widgets. The \c{<widget>}
    tag is sufficient if no additional information is required

    If the custom widget does not provide a reasonable size hint, it is
    necessary to specify a default geometry in the string returned by the
    \c domXml() function in your subclass. For example, the
    \c AnalogClockPlugin provided by the \l{designer/customwidgetplugin}
    {Custom Widget Plugin} example, defines a default widgetgeometry in the
    following way:

    \dots
    \snippet examples/designer/customwidgetplugin/customwidgetplugin.cpp 11
    \dots

    An additional feature of the \c domXml() function is that, if it returns an
    empty string, the widget will not be installed in \QD's widget box, but it
    can still be used by other widgets in the form. This feature is used to hide
    widgets that should not be explicitly created by the user, but which are
    required by other widgets.

    If you would like to use a container widget that is not a subclass of
    the containers provided in \QD, but the container is still based on the
    notion of \e{Current Page}, you need to provide a container extension and
    tell \QD which method to use to add the pages. This can be done using the
    \c{<addpagemethod>} XML tag.

    \section1 Plugin Requirements

    In order for plugins to work correctly on all platforms, you need to ensure
    that they export the symbols that are needed by \QD.

    First of all, the plugin class must be exported in order for the plugin to
    be loaded by \QD. Use the Q_EXPORT_PLUGIN2() macro to do this.

    Additionally, each custom widget class in a plugin that you want to be
    instantiated by \QD must be defined using the QDESIGNER_WIDGET_EXPORT
    macro.

    \section1 Creating Well Behaved Widgets

    Some custom widgets have special user interface features that may make them
    behave differently to many of the standard widgets found in \QD. Specifically,
    if a custom widget grabs the keyboard as a result of a call to
    QWidget::grabKeyboard(), the operation of \QD will be affected.

    To give custom widgets special behavior in \QD, provide an implementation of
    the initialize() function to configure the widget construction process for
    \QD specific behavior. This function will be called for the first time before
    any calls to createWidget() and could perhaps set an internal flag that can be
    tested later when \QD calls the plugin's createWidget() function.

    \target BuildingandInstallingthePlugin
    \section1 Building and Installing the Plugin

    The project file for a plugin must specify the headers and sources for both
    the custom widget and the plugin interface. Typically, the project file only
    needs to specify that the plugin's project is to be built as a library, but
    with specific plugin support for \QD. This is done with the following
    declarations:

    \snippet examples/designer/customwidgetplugin/customwidgetplugin.pro 1

    When Qt is configured to build in both debug and release modes, \QD will be
    built in release mode. When this occurs, it is necessary to ensure that
    plugins are also built in release mode. To do this, include the following
    declaration in the plugin's project file:

    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 3

    If plugins are built in a mode that is incompatible with \QD, they won't be
    loaded and installed. For more information about plugins, see the
    \l{plugins-howto.html}{Plugins HOWTO} document.

    It is also necessary to ensure that the plugin is installed alongside the other
    \QD widget plugins:

    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 4

    The \c $[QT_INSTALL_PLUGINS] variable is a placeholder to the location of the
    installed Qt plugins. You can configure \QD to look for plugins in other
    locations by setting the \c QT_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable before running
    the application. Note that \QD will look for a \c designer subdirectory on each
    path supplied.

    See QCoreApplication::libraryPaths() for more information about customizing
    paths for libraries and plugins with Qt applications.

    \omit
    \section1 Using Qt Script to Aid in Building Forms

    Starting with Qt 4.3, \c .ui files may contain
    \l{QtScript}{Qt Script} snippets that are executed by \l uic or QUiLoader
    when building forms.

    The snippets are executed per widget. The snippet may modify properties
    or invoke slots on the widget.

    Special variables are used to access the widget:

    \table
    \header
    \o Name
    \o Value
    \row \o \c  widget
         \o The widget being built.
    \row \o \c  childWidgets
         \o An array containing the child widgets. This is useful
         for QDesignerContainerExtension subclasses.
    \endtable

    If scripts are present in an \c {uic}-generated form, the application
    must be configured with Qt Script support.

    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 5

    For security reasons, the execution of scripts is disabled
    by default in QUiLoader. You can enable it by
    calling the QUiLoader::setScriptingEnabled() method.

    The resulting script snippet is concatenated from snippets occurring in
    several places:

    \table
    \header
    \o Source
    \o Usage
    \row \o The \c codeTemplate() function of QDesignerCustomWidgetInterface
         \o Allows snippets to be run on a per-class basis; for example, to set up a
            container using the QDesignerContainerExtension.
    \row \o The \c script() method of QDesignerScriptExtension
         \o Allows snippets to be run on a per-widget basis; for example,
            to set up the internal state of a custom widget.

            Such an internal state might be, for example, the contents of
            a custom item view container widget, for which an editor
            is provided by an QDesignerTaskMenuExtension object.

    \row \o Snippets entered at run-time using the \gui{Change script...}
            option of the form's context menu
         \o Fast prototyping. To get an idea,
            drag a QLineEdit onto the form, enter the script
            \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 6
            and preview the form.
    \endtable
    \endomit

    \section1 Related Examples

    Please see the \l{designer/customwidgetplugin}{Custom Widget Plugin} and
    \l{designer/worldtimeclockplugin}{World Time Clock Plugin} examples for more
    information about using custom widgets in \QD.
*/

/*!
    \page designer-creating-custom-widgets-extensions.html
    \previouspage Creating Custom Widgets for Qt Designer
    \nextpage Qt Designer's UI File Format
    \contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}

    \title Creating Custom Widget Extensions

    Once you have a custom widget plugin for \QD, you can provide it
    with the expected behavior and functionality within \QD's
    workspace, using custom widget extensions.

    \tableofcontents

    \section1 Extension Types

    There are several available types of extensions in \QD. You can use
    all the extensions following the same pattern, only replacing the
    respective extension base class.

    QDesignerTaskMenuExtension is useful for custom widgets while
    QDesignerContainerExtension is necessary when implementing a custom
    multi-page container.

    \table 100%
    \row
        \o \inlineimage designer-manual-taskmenuextension.png
        \o \bold {QDesignerTaskMenuExtension}

           QDesignerTaskMenuExtension provides an extension that allows
           you to add custom menu entries to \QD's task menu.

           See also the \l {designer/taskmenuextension}{Task Menu
           Extension} example.

    \row
        \o \inlineimage designer-manual-containerextension.png
        \o \bold {QDesignerContainerExtension}

           QDesignerContainerExtension provides an extension that allows
           you to add (and delete) pages to a multi-page container plugin
           in \QD.

           See also the \l {designer/containerextension}{Container
           Extension} example.

           \note It is not possible to add custom per-page properties to
           certain widgets (e.g., QTabWidget) due to the way they are
           implemented. This limitation will be addressed in future
           versions of Qt.

    \endtable

    The usage of QDesignerMemberSheetExtension and QDesignerPropertySheetExtension
    is more rare, but the classes enables you to manipulate the appearance of class
    members within \QD's workspace.

    \table 100 %
    \row
        \o \inlineimage designer-manual-membersheetextension.png
        \o \bold {QDesignerMemberSheetExtension}

           The QDesignerMemberSheetExtension class allows you to
           manipulate a widget's member functions displayed when
           connecting signals and slots.

    \row
        \o \inlineimage designer-manual-propertysheetextension.png
        \o \bold {QDesignerPropertySheetExtension, QDesignerDynamicPropertySheetExtension}

           These extension classes allow you to
           manipulate a widget's properties displayed in \QD's
           property editor.

     \row
        \o
        \o \bold {QDesignerScriptExtension}

         The QDesignerScriptExtension class allows you to define script
         snippets that are executed when a form is loaded. The extension
         is primarily intended to be used to set up the internal states
         of custom widgets.

    \endtable

    \QD uses the QDesignerPropertySheetExtension and the
    QDesignerMemberSheetExtension classes to feed its property and signal and
    slot editors. Whenever a widget is selected in its workspace, \QD
    will query for the widget's property sheet extension, and whenever
    a connection between two widgets is requested, \QD will query for
    the widgets' member sheet extensions.

    \warning All widgets have default property and member sheets. But
    if you implement custom property sheet or member sheet extensions,
    these extensions will override the default sheets.

    \section1 Creating an Extension

    To create an extension you must inherit both QObject and the
    appropriate base class, and reimplement its functions.
    Since we are implementing an interface, we must ensure that it's
    made known to the meta object system using the Q_INTERFACES()
    macro in the extension class's definition. For example:

    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 7

    This enables \QD to use the qobject_cast() function
    to query for supported interfaces using nothing but a QObject
    pointer.

    \section1 Exposing an Extension to Qt Designer

    In \QD the extensions are not created until they are
    required. For that reason, when implementing extensions, you must
    subclass QExtensionFactory to create a class that is able to
    make instances of your extensions. In addition you must register
    your factory with \QD's extension manager; the extension
    manager controls the construction of extensions as they are
    required.

    When an extension is requested, \QD's extension manager will run
    through all its registered factories calling
    QExtensionFactory::createExtension() for each until it finds one
    that is able to create the requested extension for the selected
    widget. This factory will then make an instance of the extension.

    \image qtdesignerextensions.png

    \section2 Creating an Extension Factory

    The QExtensionFactory class provides a standard extension factory,
    but can also be used as an interface for custom extension
    factories. The purpose is to reimplement the
    QExtensionFactory::createExtension() function, making it able to
    create your extension, such as a
    \l{designer/containerextension}{MultiPageWidget} container
    extension.

    You can either create a new QExtensionFactory and
    reimplement the QExtensionFactory::createExtension() function:

    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 8

    or you can use an existing factory, expanding the
    QExtensionFactory::createExtension() function to enable the factory
    to create your custom extension as well:

    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 9

    \section2 Accessing Qt Designer's Extension Manager

    When implementing a custom widget plugin, you must subclass the
    QDesignerCustomWidgetInterface to expose your plugin to Qt
    Designer. This is covered in more detail in the \l {Creating
    Custom Widgets for Qt Designer} section. The registration of an
    extension factory is typically made in the
    QDesignerCustomWidgetInterface::initialize() function:

    \snippet doc/src/snippets/code/doc.src.designer-manual.qdoc 10

    The \c formEditor parameter in the
    QDesignerCustomWidgetInterface::initialize() function is a pointer to
    \QD's current QDesignerFormEditorInterface object. You must use the
    QDesignerFormEditorInterface::extensionManager() function to
    retrieve an interface to \QD's extension manager. Then you use the
    QExtensionManager::registerExtensions() function to register your
    custom extension factory.

    \section1 Related Examples

    Please see the \l {designer/taskmenuextension}{Task Menu
    Extension} and \l {designer/containerextension}{Container Extension}
    examples for more information about creating custom widget extensions
    in \QD.
*/

/*!
    \page designer-ui-file-format.html
    \previouspage Creating Custom Widget Extensions
    \contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}

    \title Qt Designer's UI File Format

    The \c .ui file format used by \QD is described by the
    \l{http://www.w3.org/XML/Schema}{XML schema} presented below,
    which we include for your convenience. Be aware that the format
    may change in future Qt releases.

    \quotefile tools/designer/data/ui4.xsd
*/

/*!
    \page designer-recursive-shadow-casting.html
    \title Implementation of the Recursive Shadow Casting Algorithm in Qt Designer
    \contentspage {Qt Designer Manual}{Contents}

    \ingroup licensing
    \brief License information for contributions to specific parts of the Qt Designer source code.

    \legalese
    Copyright (C) 2005-2008 Trolltech ASA. All rights reserved. \BR
    Copyright (C) 2005 Bjoern Bergstroem

    Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
    a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
    "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
    without limitation the rights to use, modify, market, reproduce,
    grant sublicenses and distribute subject to the following conditions:
    The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
    included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. These
    files are provided AS IS with NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE
    WARRANTY OF DESIGN, MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
    PURPOSE.
    \endlegalese
*/
