A beginner's question

QTLeearn

Hi, I am new to Qt and I have the following question: I declared an pointer to MainWindow in the main window class:

Ui::MainWindow *ui;

In another class, I first declare an object of main window class, then when I tried to use the ui pointer, the compiler said member access into incomplete type, forwarded declaration.

MainWindow mWindow;
mWindow.ui->labelText->setText("Msg"); // member access into incomplete type

This maybe seems like a C++ question, but I am very new to Qt, please help me out, thank you

mrjj

Hi
The UI of a Widget is private so you cannot access it from other class.
While you can make it public, it's not a good way as it fast leads to intermixed and tightly coupled code.

What works much better is that you define a public method to call from the outside

like ( in .cpp, remember to add to .h also)
MainWindow::SetMessageText(QString msg) {
ui->labelText->setText(msg);
}

and from outside
MainWindow mWindow;
mWindow.SetMessageText("Msg");

Just as a note.
(since its often a beginners mistake)

In this other class you create a new instance of MainWindow.
So its not the one you might also have created in main.cpp !
and if its inside say a buttons click it will very fast be deleted as its a local variable and will be deleted as
soon as the function ends. So most likely will see nothing on screen.

QTLeearn

@mrjj Thank you for your help and yes, I found the problem you are saying: the new MainWindow object is not the one I created in main.cpp. So is there any way I can continue to use the object I created in main.cpp? Thank you very much

mrjj

Hi
Well the normal way is to use signal and slot
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/signalsandslots.html

Where do you create the other window ?
You click a button to open or how ?

QTLeearn

@mrjj I create another window object but not for showing it, I create it because there are some methods(functions) inside the MainWindow class like send receive sth. I create another window object inside a thread

SGaist

Hi,

Since you said you are learning: stop immediately anything you want to do with threads. This is an advanced topic that you should turn to only when knowing correctly the basics. All the more since you can't manipulate GUI elements outside the GUI thread which is usually the main thread.
Also the asynchronous nature of Qt allows for a large part to avoid using threads.

mrjj

Hi
Can you show what you want to reuse from MainWindow in other class?
One option is to connect the two class in main.cpp or in MainWindow
depending on how your other class comes into play.

jsulm

@QTLeearn said in A beginner's question:

I create it because there are some methods(functions) inside the MainWindow class

Sounds like you put those methods in wrong place. Either you make these methods static (if this is possible), or (better) put these methods in another class which will cover this functionality.

QTLeearn

@mrjj thank you, this solved my problem

Pablo J. Rogina

@QTLeearn please don't forget to mark your post as solved! Thanks