how to cause view to update based on model change?

[flaudio]

Hi @mzimmers,
have you tried to use only the GridView (comment the ListView, in order to reduce the amount of code to test)? I suggest also to add the snippet of the used model (I'm not sure if it is a JS list or a ListModel - the featureUuidList method). And try to add (as @GrecKo suggested) onSpaceFeatureListChanged to understand if the GridView model is changing.

GridView {
    required property Space space
    property var spaceFeatureList: sceneModel.featureUuidList(false, space.uuid)
    model: spaceFeatureList
    delegate: Text { text: modelData }
    onSpaceFeatureListChanged: {
        console.log("model changed!")
   }
}

[mzimmers]

@flaudio featureUuidList is an invokable C++ function. I only use it to initialize my property/model.

I did put the telltale in, and it's not getting hit. Tried it with and without the outer ListView. I'm clearly doing something wrong, because other telltales confirm that the array is indeed getting changed.

[jeremy_k]

@mzimmers said in how to cause view to update based on model change?:

                                var i = spaceFeatureList.push(activityId)

I've verified that the callback is invoked appropriately, all the arguments are good, and the spaceFeatureList is correct after processing. Yet, my view doesn't change.

This code is modifying the content of the javascript array, which does not have a change notification signal. If the goal is to stick with a non-QAbstractItemModel model, the property value needs to change. ie

   var newArray = manipulate(spaceFeatureList);
   spaceFeatureList =  newArray;

Doing this will cause the view to reset and create new delegates for all items visible. The documentation apparently isn't sufficiently explicit. Assigning a JS object to a view's model property does not create a QAIM that tracks the object's content.

Consider this example:

import QtQuick

Window {
    ListView {
        id: view
        anchors.fill: parent
    }
    ListModel {
        id: listModel
        ListElement {
            modelData: 1
        }
    }
    property var arrayModel: ["1"]
    property int intModel: 1

    Component.onCompleted: {
        var propList = []
        for (var i in view.model) {
            propList.push(i);
        }
        console.log("view.model properties:")
        for (i in propList.sort())
            console.log(propList[i]);
    }

If view.model is bound to listModel, the output is:

qml: view.model properties:
[...]
qml: count
qml: countChanged
qml: data
qml: dataChanged
[...]

view.model is bound to arrayModel:

qml: view.model properties:
qml: 0

to intModel:

qml: view.model properties:

[ankou29666]

@jeremy_k said in how to cause view to update based on model change?:

Doing this will cause the view to reset and create new delegates for all items visible. The documentation apparently isn't sufficiently explicit. Assigning a JS object to a view's model property does not create a QAIM that tracks the object's content.

from my own experience, QAbstractItemModel doesn't magically track the object content. If you modify the underlying data out of the QAIM or any connected view, the QAIM is unaware of these changes. I mean that if a QAIM encapsulates a QList<WhatSoEver> list, and you modify that list directly, the QAIM won't see the change.

I'm getting a little bit confused now, but as OP has two views and the problem is, if I understand it right, when one view is modified, the other is not updated.

What I would make is an underlying ListModel that would encapsulate the JSArray. And bind those two view to that ListModel rather than to the JSArray. Perhaps wouldn't solve everything, a good beginning I think.

@GrecKo said in how to cause view to update based on model change?:

Forget the dataChanged() discussion, it is not relevant here as you realized since no QAIM is involved.

Yep my bad, I really don't understand where I got a dataChanged signal to ListModel, it doesn't have any.

[jeremy_k]

@ankou29666 said in how to cause view to update based on model change?:

@jeremy_k said in how to cause view to update based on model change?:

Doing this will cause the view to reset and create new delegates for all items visible. The documentation apparently isn't sufficiently explicit. Assigning a JS object to a view's model property does not create a QAIM that tracks the object's content.

from my own experience, QAbstractItemModel doesn't magically track the object content. If you modify the underlying data out of the QAIM or any connected view, the QAIM is unaware of these changes. I mean that if a QAIM encapsulates a QList<WhatSoEver> list, and you modify that list directly, the QAIM won't see the change.

Put more abstractly, if code avoids the interface of a class, it won't function as an instance of that class. Hopefully that's not a surprise.

I'm getting a little bit confused now, but as OP has two views and the problem is, if I understand it right, when one view is modified, the other is not updated.

What I would make is an underlying ListModel that would encapsulate the JSArray. And bind those two view to that ListModel rather than to the JSArray. Perhaps wouldn't solve everything, a good beginning I think.

At the risk of repeating, a JS Array (or any javascript object) does not have a change notification signal. This means that nothing else is aware that an update is required. Detecting changes must therefore depend on another mechanism. For example:

• Assign a new object to a QtObject's property when the change is made.
• Run a Timer and go looking for changes in data, refreshing display Items as appropriate.
• Limit changes to a dedicated editor "page" that doesn't rely on change signals, and reload all other "pages" when the editor page is destroyed.

There are probably other options that I haven't considered.

The TL;DR; version is: Why not use ListModel? It has member functions for inserting, removing, and modifying items in the list that can be called from javascript.

[ankou29666]

@jeremy_k said in how to cause view to update based on model change?:

At the risk of repeating, a JS Array (or any javascript object) does not have a change notification signal. This means that nothing else is aware that an update is required. Detecting changes must therefore depend on another mechanism. For example:

This is exactly what I said in my first replies.

Makes me feel like if in C++ you would have two QAIM each referring to the same dataset and changes made by one model wouldn't notify the other one. Excepted that here we have no model at all, it's a little bit as if we had two distinct models referring to the very same dataset (maybe there's two implicit models created by the views ? doesn't really matter).

Creating one explicit model that encapsulates the dataset seems to me the most appropriated solution to the problem. Seems to me like the solution that matches best the model/view architecture.

[jeremy_k]

@ankou29666 said in how to cause view to update based on model change?:

@jeremy_k said in how to cause view to update based on model change?:

At the risk of repeating, a JS Array (or any javascript object) does not have a change notification signal. This means that nothing else is aware that an update is required. Detecting changes must therefore depend on another mechanism. For example:

This is exactly what I said in my first replies.

I would guess that this topic is in the top 5 most common on the board. It's all repetition to me. People ask all sorts of variations, such as What if the variable is called y instead of x? The fundamental issues are the same.

Makes me feel like if in C++ you would have two QAIM each referring to the same dataset and changes made by one model wouldn't notify the other one. Excepted that here we have no model at all, it's a little bit as if we had two distinct models referring to the very same dataset (maybe there's two implicit models created by the views ? doesn't really matter).

Yes!

Creating one explicit model that encapsulates the dataset seems to me the most appropriated solution to the problem. Seems to me like the solution that matches best the model/view architecture.

Yes!!

[JoeCFD]

@ankou29666 I agree with Ankou. It is simple and easier to create a C++ model.

[ankou29666]

C++ why not, but if OP's data source is a JS array, I would personally first try something around QML's ListModel before switching to C++

[mzimmers]

This post is deleted!

[mzimmers]

Thanks for all the help, guys. I was able to get this working like so:

GridView {
    required property Space space
    property var spaceFeatureList: sceneModel.featureUuidList(false, space.uuid)
    ListModel {
        id: spaceFeatureListModel
    }
    Component.onCompleted: {
        spaceFeatureListModel.clear()
        for (var i = 0; i < spaceFeatureList.length; i++) {
            spaceFeatureListModel.append({ "uuid": spaceFeatureList[i] })
        }
    }
    model: spaceFeatureListModel
    
    Connections {
        target: sceneSetupPane
        function onFeatureListChanged(spaceId, activityId, status) {
            if (spaceId.localeCompare(space.uuid) === 0) {
                if (status) {
                    var i
                    for (i = 0; i < spaceFeatureListModel.count; i++) {
                        if (spaceFeatureListModel.get(i).uuid === activityId) {
                            break
                        }
                    }
                    if (i >= spaceFeatureListModel.count) {
                        spaceFeatureListModel.append({ "uuid": activityId })
                    }
                } else {
                    for (i = 0; i < spaceFeatureListModel.count; i++) {
                        if (spaceFeatureListModel.get(i).uuid === activityId) {
                            spaceFeatureListModel.remove(i)
                            break
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

The function could probably use some optimizing, but it works. Thanks again.