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/****************************************************************************
**
** Copyright (C) 2010 Nokia Corporation and/or its subsidiary(-ies).
** All rights reserved.
** Contact: Nokia Corporation (qt-info@nokia.com)
**
** This file is part of the documentation of the Qt Toolkit.
**
** $QT_BEGIN_LICENSE:FDL$
** Commercial Usage
** Licensees holding valid Qt Commercial licenses may use this file in
** accordance with the Qt Commercial License Agreement provided with the
** Software or, alternatively, in accordance with the terms contained in a
** written agreement between you and Nokia.
**
** GNU Free Documentation License
** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Free
** Documentation License version 1.3 as published by the Free Software
** Foundation and appearing in the file included in the packaging of this
** file.
**
** If you have questions regarding the use of this file, please contact
** Nokia at qt-info@nokia.com.
** $QT_END_LICENSE$
**
****************************************************************************/
/*!
\page gettingstarted.html
\title Getting Started
Welcome to the world of Qt--the cross-platform GUI toolkit. In
this getting started guide, we teach basic Qt knowledge by
implementing a simple Notepad application. After reading this
guide, you should be ready to delve into our overviews and API
documentation, and find the information you need for the
application you are developing.
\section1 Hello Notepad
In this first example, we simply create and show a text edit in a
window frame on the desktop. This represents the simplest possible
Qt program that has a GUI.
\image gs1.png
Here is the code:
\code
1 #include <QApplication>
2 #include <QTextEdit>
3
4 int main(int argv, char **args)
5 {
6 QApplication app(argv, args);
7
8 QTextEdit textEdit;
9 textEdit.show();
10
11 return app.exec();
12 }
\endcode
Let us go through the code line by line. In the first two lines, we
include the header files for QApplication and QTextEdit, which are
the two classes that we need for this example. All Qt classes have
a header file named after them.
Line 6 creates a QApplication object. This object manages
application-wide resources and is necessary to run any Qt program
that has a GUI. It needs \c argv and \c args because Qt accepts a
few command line arguments.
Line 8 creates a QTextEdit object. A text edit is a visual element
in the GUI. In Qt, we call such elements widgets. Examples of
other widgets are scroll bars, labels, and radio buttons. A widget
can also be a container for other widgets; a dialog or a main
application window, for example.
Line 9 shows the text edit on the screen in its own window frame.
Since widgets also function as containers (for instance a
QMainWindow, which has toolbars, menus, a status bar, and a few
other widgets), it is possible to show a single widget in its own
window. Widgets are not visible by default; the function
\l{QWidget::}{show()} makes the widget visible.
Line 11 makes the QApplication enter its event loop. When a Qt
application is running, events are generated and sent to the
widgets of the application. Examples of events are mouse presses
and key strokes. When you type text in the text edit widget, it
receives key pressed events and responds by drawing the text
typed.
To run the application, open a command prompt, and enter the
directory in which you have the \c .cpp file of the program. The
following shell commands build the program.
\code
qmake -project
qmake
make
\endcode
This will leave an executable in the \c part1 directory (note that
on Windows, you may have to use \c nmake instead of \c make. Also,
the executable will be placed in part1/debug or part1/release). \c
qmake is Qt's build tool, which takes a configuration file. \c
qmake generates this for us when given the \c{-project} argument.
Given the configuration file (suffixed .pro), \c qmake produces a
\c make file that will build the program for you. We will look
into writing our own \c .pro files later.
\section2 Learn More
\table
\header
\o About
\o Here
\row
\o Widgets and Window Geometry
\o \l{Window and Dialog Widgets}
\row
\o Events and event handling
\o \l{The Event System}
\endtable
\section1 Adding a Quit Button
In a real application, you will normally need more than one
widget. We will now introduce a QPushButton beneath the text edit.
The button will exit the Notepad application when pushed (i.e.,
clicked on with the mouse).
\image gs2.png
Let us take a look at the code.
\code
1 #include <QtGui>
2
3 int main(int argv, char **args)
4 {
5 QApplication app(argv, args);
6
7 QTextEdit textEdit;
8 QPushButton quitButton("Quit");
9
10 QObject::connect(&quitButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), qApp, SLOT(quit()));
11
12 QVBoxLayout layout;
13 layout.addWidget(&textEdit);
14 layout.addWidget(&quitButton);
15
16 QWidget window;
17 window.setLayout(&layout);
18
19 window.show();
20
21 return app.exec();
22 }
\endcode
Line 1 includes QtGui, which contains all of Qt's GUI classes.
Line 10 uses Qt's Signals and Slots mechanism to make the
application exit when the \gui {Quit button} is pushed. A slot is
a function that can be invoked at runtime using its name (as a
literal string). A signal is a function that when called will
invoke slots registered with it; we call that to connect the slot
to the signal and to emit the signal.
\l{QApplication::}{quit()} is a slot of QApplication that exits
the application. \l{QPushButton::}{clicked()} is a signal that
QPushButton emits when it is pushed. The static
QObject::connect() function takes care of connecting the slot to
the signal. SIGNAL() and SLOT() are two macros that take the
function signatures of the signal and slot to connect. We also
need to give pointers to the objects that should send and receive
the signal.
Line 12 creates a QVBoxLayout. As mentioned, widgets can contain
other widgets. It is possible to set the bounds (the location and
size) of child widgets directly, but it is usually easier to use a
layout. A layout manages the bounds of a widget's children.
QVBoxLayout, for instance, places the children in a vertical row.
Line 13 and 14 adds the text edit and button to the layout. In
line 17, we set the layout on a widget.
\section2 Learn More
\table
\header
\o About
\o Here
\row
\o Signals and slots
\o \l{Signals & Slots}
\row
\o Layouts
\o \l{Layout Management},
\l{Widgets and Layouts},
\l{Layout Examples}
\row
\o The widgets that come with Qt
\o \l{Qt Widget Gallery},
\l{Widget Examples}
\endtable
\section1 Subclassing QWidget
When the user wants to quit an application, you might want to
pop-up a dialog that asks whether he/she really wants to quit. In
this example, we subclass QWidget, and add a slot that we connect
to the \gui {Quit button}.
\image gs3.png
Let us look at the code:
\code
5 class Notepad : public QWidget
6 {
7 Q_OBJECT
8
9 public:
10 Notepad();
11
12 private slots:
13 void quit();
14
15 private:
16 QTextEdit *textEdit;
17 QPushButton *quitButton;
18 };
\endcode
The \c Q_OBJECT macro must be first in the class definition, and
declares our class as a \c QObject (Naturally, it must also
inherit from QObject). A \l{QObject} adds several abilities to a
normal C++ class. Notably, the class name and slot names can be
queried at run-time. It is also possible to query a slot's
parameter types and invoke it.
Line 13 declares the slot \c quit(). This is easy using the \c
slots macro. The \c quit() slot can now be connected to signals
with a matching signature (any signal that takes no parameters).
Instead of setting up the GUI and connecting the slot in the \c
main() function, we now use \c{Notepad}'s constructor.
\code
Notepad::Notepad()
{
textEdit = new QTextEdit;
quitButton = new QPushButton(tr("Quit"));
connect(quitButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(quit()));
QVBoxLayout *layout = new QVBoxLayout;
layout->addWidget(textEdit);
layout->addWidget(quitButton);
setLayout(layout);
setWindowTitle(tr("Notepad"));
}
\endcode
As you saw in the class definition, we use pointers to our \l
{QObject}s (\c textEdit and \c quitButton). As a rule, you should
always allocate \l{QObject}s on the heap and never copy them.
We now use the function \l{QObject::}{tr()} around our user
visible strings. This function is necessary when you want to
provide your application in more than one language (e.g. English
and Chinese). We will not go into details here, but you can follow
the \c {Qt Linguist} link from the learn more table.
\section2 Learn More
\table
\header
\o About
\o Here
\row
\o tr() and internationalization
\o \l{Qt Linguist Manual},
\l{Writing Source Code for Translation},
\l{Hello tr() Example},
\l{Internationalization with Qt}
\row
\o QObjects and the Qt Object model (This is essential to understand Qt)
\o \l{Object Model}
\row
\o qmake and the Qt build system
\o \l{qmake Manual}
\endtable
\section2 Creating a .pro file
For this example, we write our own \c .pro file instead of
using \c qmake's \c -project option.
\code
HEADERS = notepad.h
SOURCES = notepad.cpp \
main.cpp
\endcode
The following shell commands build the example.
\code
qmake
make
\endcode
\section1 Using a QMainWindow
Many applications will benefit from using a QMainWindow, which has
its own layout to which you can add a menu bar, dock widgets, tool
bars, and a status bar. QMainWindow has a center area that can be
occupied by any kind of widget. In our case, we will place our
text edit there.
\image gs4.png
Let us look at the new \c Notepad class definition.
\code
#include <QtGui>
class Notepad : public QMainWindow
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
Notepad();
private slots:
void open();
void save();
void quit();
private:
QTextEdit *textEdit;
QAction *openAction;
QAction *saveAction;
QAction *exitAction;
QMenu *fileMenu;
};
\endcode
We include two more slots that can save and open a document. We
will implement these in the next section.
Often, in a main window, the same slot should be invoked by
several widgets. Examples are menu items and buttons on a tool
bar. To make this easier, Qt provides QAction, which can be given
to several widgets, and be connected to a slot. For instance, both
QMenu and QToolBar can create menu items and tool buttons from the
same \l{QAction}s. We will see how this works shortly.
As before, we use the \c {Notepad}s constructor to set up the
GUI.
\code
Notepad::Notepad()
{
saveAction = new QAction(tr("&Open"), this);
saveAction = new QAction(tr("&Save"), this);
exitAction = new QAction(tr("E&xit"), this);
connect(openAction, SIGNAL(triggered()), this, SLOT(open()));
connect(saveAction, SIGNAL(triggered()), this, SLOT(save()));
connect(exitAction, SIGNAL(triggered()), qApp, SLOT(quit()));
fileMenu = menuBar()->addMenu(tr("&File"));
fileMenu->addAction(openAction);
fileMenu->addAction(saveAction);
fileMenu->addSeparator();
fileMenu->addAction(exitAction);
textEdit = new QTextEdit;
setCentralWidget(textEdit);
setWindowTitle(tr("Notepad"));
}
\endcode
\l{QAction}s are created with the text that should appear on the
widgets that we add them to (in our case, menu items). If we also
wanted to add them to a tool bar, we could have given
\l{QIcon}{icons} to the actions.
When a menu item is clicked now, the item will trigger the action,
and the respective slot will be invoked.
\section2 Learn More
\table
\header
\o About
\o Here
\row
\o Main windows and main window classes
\o \l{Application Main Window},
\l{Main Window Examples}
\row
\o MDI applications
\o QMdiArea,
\l{MDI Example}
\endtable
\section1 Saving and Loading
In this example, we will implement the functionality of the \c
open() and \c save() slots that we added in the previous example.
\image gs5.png
We will start with the \c open() slot:
\code
QString fileName = QFileDialog::getOpenFileName(this, tr("Open File"), "",
tr("Text Files (*.txt);;C++ Files (*.cpp *.h)"));
if (fileName != "") {
QFile file(fileName);
if (!file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly)) {
QMessageBox::critical(this, tr("Error"),
tr("Could not open file"));
return;
}
QString contents = file.readAll().constData();
textEdit->setPlainText(contents);
file.close();
}
\endcode
The first step is asking the user for the name of the file to
open. Qt comes with QFileDialog, which is a dialog from which the
user can select a file. The image above shows the dialog on
Kubuntu. The static \l{QFileDialog::}{getOpenFileName()} function
displays a modal file dialog, and does not return until the user
has selected a file. It returns the file path of the file
selected, or an empty string if the user canceled the dialog.
If we have a file name, we try to open the file with
\l{QIODevice::}{open()}, which returns true if the file could be
opened. We will not go into error handling here, but you can follow
the links from the learn more section. If the file could not be
opened, we use QMessageBox to display a dialog with an error
message (see the QMessageBox class description for further
details).
Actually reading in the data is trivial using the
\l{QIODevice::}{readAll()} function, which returns all data in the
file in a QByteArray. The \l{QByteArray::}{constData()} returns all
data in the array as a const char*, which QString has a
constructor for. The contents can then be displayed in the text
edit. We then \l{QIODevice::}{close()} the file to return the file
descriptor back to the operating system.
Now, let us move on to the the \c save() slot.
\code
QString fileName = QFileDialog::getSaveFileName(this, tr("Save File"), "",
tr("Text Files (*.txt);;C++ Files (*.cpp *.h)"));
if (fileName != "") {
QFile file(fileName);
if (!file.open(QIODevice::WriteOnly)) {
// error message
} else {
QTextStream stream(&file);
stream << textEdit->toPlainText();
stream.flush();
file.close();
}
}
\endcode
When we write the contents of the text edit to the file, we use
the QTextStream class, which wraps the QFile object. The text
stream can write QStrings directly to the file; QFile only accepts
raw data (char*) with the \l{QIODevice::}{write()} functions of
QIODevice.
\section2 Learn More
\table
\header
\o About
\o Here
\row
\o Files and I/O devices
\o QFile, QIODevice
\endtable
\omit
\section1 Moving On
This may not be true for the first release.
The Qt documentation comes with three getting started guides. You
have come to the end of the first, which concerns itself with
basic Qt concepts. We also have guides covering intermediate and
advanced topics. They are found here: You may also have noticed that the learn more sections in
this guide frequently linked to them.
Basic Qt Architecture
\endomit
*/
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