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/****************************************************************************
**
** Copyright (C) 2011 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.
**
** $QT_BEGIN_LICENSE:FDL$
** 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 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 qtdesigner-components.html
\title Creating and Using Components for Qt Designer
\brief How to create and use custom widget plugins.
\ingroup best-practices
\tableofcontents
\section1 Creating Custom Widget Plugins
When implementing a custom widget plugin for \QD, you must
subclass QDesignerCustomWidgetInterface to expose your custom
widget to \QD. A single custom widget plugin is built as a
separate library. If you want to include several custom widget
plugins in the same library, you must in addition subclass
QDesignerCustomWidgetCollectionInterface.
To provide your custom widget plugin with the expected behavior
and functionality within \QD's workspace you can subclass the
associated extension classes:
The QDesignerContainerExtension class allows you to add pages to a
custom multi-page container. The QDesignerTaskMenuExtension class
allows you to add custom menu entries to \QD's task menu. The
QDesignerMemberSheetExtension class allows you to manipulate a
widget's member functions which is displayed when configuring
connections using \QD's mode for editing signals and slots. And
finally, the QDesignerPropertySheetExtension class allows you to
manipulate a widget's properties which is displayed in \QD's
property editor.
\image qtdesignerextensions.png
In \QD the extensions are not created until they are required. For
that reason, when implementing extensions, you must also subclass
QExtensionFactory, i.e create a class that is able to make
instances of your extensions. In addition, you must make \QD's
extension manager register your factory; the extension manager
controls the construction of extensions as they are required, and
you can access it through QDesignerFormEditorInterface and
QExtensionManager.
For a complete example creating a custom widget plugin with an
extension, see the \l {designer/taskmenuextension}{Task Menu
Extension} or \l {designer/containerextension}{Container
Extension} examples.
\section1 Retrieving Access to \QD Components
The purpose of the classes mentioned in this section is to provide
access to \QD's components, managers and workspace, and they are
not intended to be instantiated directly.
\QD is composed by several components. It has an action editor, a
property editor, widget box and object inspector which you can
view in its workspace.
\image qtdesignerscreenshot.png
\QD also has an object that works behind the scene; it contains
the logic that integrates all of \QD's components into a coherent
application. You can access this object, using the
QDesignerFormEditorInterface, to retrieve interfaces to \QD's
components:
\list
\o QDesignerActionEditorInterface
\o QDesignerObjectInspectorInterface
\o QDesignerPropertyEditorInterface
\o QDesignerWidgetBoxInterface
\endlist
In addition, you can use QDesignerFormEditorInterface to retrieve
interfaces to \QD's extension manager (QExtensionManager) and form
window manager (QDesignerFormWindowManagerInterface). The
extension manager controls the construction of extensions as they
are required, while the form window manager controls the form
windows appearing in \QD's workspace.
Once you have an interface to \QD's form window manager
(QDesignerFormWindowManagerInterface), you also have access to all
the form windows currently appearing in \QD's workspace: The
QDesignerFormWindowInterface class allows you to query and
manipulate the form windows, and it provides an interface to the
form windows' cursors. QDesignerFormWindowCursorInterface is a
convenience class allowing you to query and modify a given form
window's widget selection, and in addition modify the properties
of all the form's widgets.
\section1 Creating User Interfaces at Run-Time
The \c QtDesigner module contains the QFormBuilder class that
provides a mechanism for dynamically creating user interfaces at
run-time, based on UI files created with \QD. This class is
typically used by custom components and applications that embed
\QD. Standalone applications that need to dynamically generate
user interfaces at run-time use the QUiLoader class, found in
the QtUiTools module.
For a complete example using QUiLoader, see
the \l {designer/calculatorbuilder}{Calculator Builder example}.
\sa {Qt Designer Manual}, {QtUiTools Module}
*/
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