Difference between QMdiSubWindow and QDockWidget

Gbhutra

What is the difference between QMdiSubWindow and QDockWidget??
As far as I can tell in Qt 5.11.2 the QMdiSubWindow are also dockable! Is there a performance hit in one or the other?

Also, the widgets created by either of them don't look very good on mac. I have set the application to use

QApplication::setAttribute(Qt::AA_EnableHighDpiScaling);
QApplication::setAttribute(Qt::AA_UseHighDpiPixmaps);

The subwindows look fine on windows though.

SGaist

Hi and welcome to devnet,

They serve two different purposes.

As the name suggests, QMdiSubWindow is for Multiple-Document Interface Applications which enable you to display multiple documents at the same time. Each document being displayed in its own window. MDI applications often have a Window menu item with submenus for switching between windows or documents.

QDockWidget are usually used to provide controls, views, etc in an application.