/****************************************************************************
**
** Copyright (C) 2009 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
** Contact: Nokia Corporation (qt-info@nokia.com)
**
** This file is part of the documentation of the Qt Toolkit.
**
** $QT_BEGIN_LICENSE:LGPL$
** No Commercial Usage
** This file contains pre-release code and may not be distributed.
** You may use this file in accordance with the terms and conditions
** contained in the Technology Preview License Agreement accompanying
** this package.
**
** GNU Lesser General Public License Usage
** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Lesser
** General Public License version 2.1 as published by the Free Software
** Foundation and appearing in the file LICENSE.LGPL included in the
** packaging of this file.  Please review the following information to
** ensure the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 requirements
** will be met: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.html.
**
** In addition, as a special exception, Nokia gives you certain
** additional rights.  These rights are described in the Nokia Qt LGPL
** Exception version 1.1, included in the file LGPL_EXCEPTION.txt in this
** package.
**
** If you have questions regarding the use of this file, please contact
** Nokia at qt-info@nokia.com.
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
** $QT_END_LICENSE$
**
****************************************************************************/

/*!
    \page custom-types.html
    \title Creating Custom Qt Types
    \ingroup architecture
    \brief How to create and register new types with Qt.

    \tableofcontents

    \section1 Overview

    When creating user interfaces with Qt, particularly those with specialized controls and
    features, developers sometimes need to create new data types that can be used alongside
    or in place of Qt's existing set of value types.

    Standard types such as QSize, QColor and QString can all be stored in QVariant objects,
    used as the types of properties in QObject-based classes, and emitted in signal-slot
    communication.

    In this document, we take a custom type and describe how to integrate it into Qt's object
    model so that it can be stored in the same way as standard Qt types. We then show how to
    register the custom type to allow it to be used in signals and slots connections.

    \section1 Creating a Custom Type

    Before we begin, we need to ensure that the custom type we are creating meets all the
    requirements imposed by QMetaType. In other words, it must provide:

    \list
    \o a public default constructor,
    \o a public copy constructor, and
    \o a public destructor.
    \endlist

    The following \c Message class definition includes these members:

    \snippet examples/tools/customtype/message.h custom type definition

    The class also provides a constructor for normal use and two public member functions
    that are used to obtain the private data.

    \section1 Declaring the Type with QMetaType

    The \c Message class only needs a suitable implementation in order to be usable.
    However, Qt's type system will not be able to understand how to store, retrieve
    and serialize instances of this class without some assistance. For example, we
    will be unable to store \c Message values in QVariant.

    The class in Qt responsible for custom types is QMetaType. To make the type known
    to this class, we invoke the Q_DECLARE_METATYPE() macro on the class in the header
    file where it is defined:

    \snippet examples/tools/customtype/message.h custom type meta-type declaration

    This now makes it possible for \c Message values to be stored in QVariant objects
    and retrieved later. See the \l{Custom Type Example} for code that demonstrates
    this.

    The Q_DECLARE_METATYPE() macro also makes it possible for these values to be used as
    arguments to signals, but \e{only in direct signal-slot connections}.
    To make the custom type generally usable with the signals and slots mechanism, we
    need to perform some extra work.

    \section1 Creating and Destroying Custom Objects

    Although the declaration in the previous section makes the type available for use
    in direct signal-slot connections, it cannot be used for queued signal-slot
    connections, such as those that are made between objects in different threads.
    This is because the meta-object system does not know how to handle creation and
    destruction of objects of the custom type at run-time.

    To enable creation of objects at run-time, call the qRegisterMetaType() template
    function to register it with the meta-object system. This also makes the type
    available for queued signal-slot communication as long as you call it before you
    make the first connection that uses the type.

    The \l{Queued Custom Type Example} declares a \c Block class which is registered
    in the \c{main.cpp} file:

    \snippet examples/threads/queuedcustomtype/main.cpp main start
    \dots
    \snippet examples/threads/queuedcustomtype/main.cpp register meta-type for queued communications
    \dots
    \snippet examples/threads/queuedcustomtype/main.cpp main finish

    This type is later used in a signal-slot connection in the \c{window.cpp} file:

    \snippet examples/threads/queuedcustomtype/window.cpp Window constructor start
    \dots
    \snippet examples/threads/queuedcustomtype/window.cpp connecting signal with custom type
    \dots
    \snippet examples/threads/queuedcustomtype/window.cpp Window constructor finish

    If a type is used in a queued connection without being registered, a warning will be
    printed at the console; for example:

    \code
    QObject::connect: Cannot queue arguments of type 'Block'
    (Make sure 'Block' is registered using qRegisterMetaType().)
    \endcode

    \section1 Making the Type Printable

    It is often quite useful to make a custom type printable for debugging purposes,
    as in the following code:

    \snippet examples/tools/customtype/main.cpp printing a custom type

    This is achieved by creating a streaming operator for the type, which is often
    defined in the header file for that type:

    \snippet examples/tools/customtype/message.h custom type streaming operator

    The implementation for the \c Message type in the \l{Custom Type Example}
    goes to some effort to make the printable representation as readable as
    possible:

    \snippet examples/tools/customtype/message.cpp custom type streaming operator

    The output sent to the debug stream can, of course, be made as simple or as
    complicated as you like. Note that the value returned by this function is
    the QDebug object itself, though this is often obtained by calling the
    maybeSpace() member function of QDebug that pads out the stream with space
    characters to make it more readable.

    \section1 Further Reading

    The Q_DECLARE_METATYPE() macro and qRegisterMetaType() function documentation
    contain more detailed information about their uses and limitations.

    The \l{Custom Type Example}{Custom Type},
    \l{Custom Type Sending Example}{Custom Type Sending}
    and \l{Queued Custom Type Example}{Queued Custom Type} examples show how to
    implement a custom type with the features outlined in this document.

    The \l{Debugging Techniques} document provides an overview of the debugging
    mechanisms discussed above.
*/