QTreeView vs QTableView

[JonB]

Qt5. I have inherited a large project, which works. It has a lot of "table views" in various places. There are no comments/explanations :)

By "table views" I mean your standard "show-rows-and-columns" from the model. About half the time it uses a QTableView, which is what I would have picked. However, the other half of the time it uses a QTreeView (with setRootIsDecorated(False)). These seem to have things like header columns etc., just like in a QTableView.

Could someone explain conceptually why/what's going on here? Why would you pick a QTreeView rather than a QTableView for displaying a rows & columns table? (The QTreeViews do not have a "hierarchical" structure, just flat rows/columns, so that's not why.) I need to understand this before I can figure what I want to do.

If it makes any difference, the origins of the code are way back in Qt4/years ago. Grasping at a straw, was QTreeView a better choice over QTableView years ago?

[SGaist]

Hi,

A QTreeView is meant to show hierarchical models so you have to check the models used underneath to see what makes more sense to use.

[JonB]

@SGaist
Yes, that is what I would have expected. But I'm saying: these QTreeViews just do not have any hierarchical model, they have the same flat row-column (e.g. from a straightforward SQL SELECT * FROM table) as the QTableViews have. That's why I was asking what the reason might have been for the choice?

Assuming what you say is indeed true, and I can check & confirm the QTableViews are only presenting a flat model view, my thought is to change all the QTreeViews over to QTableViews. For one I like consistency, and for another I'm wanting to put into some major sub-classing facilities for all of these tables, so starting from the same base class is going to make my life easier. What do you think?

[VRonin]

I did it myself in the past. The reason has always been visual style.
Sometimes the default layout and appearance of QTreeView is more appealing than QTableView. nothing major

[JonB]

@VRonin
Brill. Just what I wanted to hear. I am launching into changing all the QTreeViews over to QtableViews, before then doing work on them all.

Thank you, Happy Xmas :)