Disable toplevel item of QTreeWidget

Mummoc

Hi everyone and happy new year to you all !!

In my project i have a QTreeWidget filled with QTreeWidgetItems, each element of my tree has a checkbox (not the widget i just use the checkboxes of QTreeWidgetItem). And each toplevel item has one or several children.

My question is can i disable a toplevel item without disabling it's children ? I want the toplevel item to be grayed out and non-clickable while still being able the see it's children and check/uncheck them.

So far i can't seem to do that simply, adding a widget inside my QTreeWidgetItem and disabling that instead of the QTreeWidgetItem would work but seem like a hassle just for that. The other way would be to "simulate" the disable by catching keyboards/mouse events and changing the visuals manually but that also seems like a lot of work for not much.

Thanks in advance for the reply :)

mrjj

Hi
You should be able to change its flags for the parent item

https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtreewidgetitem.html#flags

https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtreewidgetitem.html#setFlags

https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qt.html#ItemFlag-enum

Mummoc

First, thanks for the reply !
I've already parsed the doc you linked times and times again and, unless i'm missing something, what you suggested was the first thing i tried, here's the constructor for my test project:

    this->setWindowTitle("QTreeWidget test");

    QTreeWidget* treeA = new QTreeWidget(this);
    treeA->setHeaderHidden(true);

    QTreeWidgetItem* parentItemA = new QTreeWidgetItem(treeA, QStringList(QString("parent 1")));
    QTreeWidgetItem* childItemA1 = new QTreeWidgetItem(parentItemA, QStringList(QString("child 1")));
    QTreeWidgetItem* childItemA2 = new QTreeWidgetItem(parentItemA, QStringList(QString("child 2")));
    QTreeWidgetItem* childItemA3 = new QTreeWidgetItem(childItemA1, QStringList(QString("child 3")));
    QTreeWidgetItem* childItemA4 = new QTreeWidgetItem(childItemA1, QStringList(QString("child 4")));

    QHBoxLayout* layout = new QHBoxLayout(this);
    layout->addWidget(treeA);

    childItemA1->setFlags(childItemA1->flags() & ~Qt::ItemIsEnabled);

    childItemA3->setFlags(childItemA3->flags() | Qt::ItemIsEnabled);

It's simply a QTreeWidget filled with some QTreeWidgetItems. Here's the output :

Child 1 is disabled but child 3 and 4 also are. I even manually re-set child 3's flag to IsEnabled to no avail.

At this point i'm not sure if what i'm looking for is actually possible. It's not really important since i still managed to get the results i wanted but i would've preferred a cleaner solution.

mrjj

@Mummoc

Hmm I must recall wrong and flags actually affect children also - to be "helpful" since in many cases it makes sense
that if the parent is disabled, children are also.
Sorry for the goose chase then :)

Yep it does.

void QTreeWidgetItem::setFlags(Qt::ItemFlags flags)
{
    const bool enable = (flags & Qt::ItemIsEnabled);
    const bool changedState = bool(itemFlags & Qt::ItemIsEnabled) != enable;
    const bool changedExplicit = d->disabled != !enable;
    d->disabled = !enable;
    if (enable && par && !(par->itemFlags & Qt::ItemIsEnabled)) // inherit from parent
        itemFlags = flags & ~Qt::ItemIsEnabled;
    else // this item is explicitly disabled or has no parent
        itemFlags = flags;
    if (changedState && changedExplicit) { // if the propagate the change to the children
        QStack<QTreeWidgetItem*> parents;
        parents.push(this);
        while (!parents.isEmpty()) {
            QTreeWidgetItem *parent = parents.pop();
            for (int i = 0; i < parent->children.count(); ++i) {
                QTreeWidgetItem *child = parent->children.at(i);
                if (!child->d->disabled) { // if not explicitly disabled
                    parents.push(child);
                    if (enable)
                        child->itemFlags = child->itemFlags | Qt::ItemIsEnabled;
                    else
                        child->itemFlags = child->itemFlags & ~Qt::ItemIsEnabled;
                    child->itemChanged(); // ### we may want to optimize this
                }
            }
        }
    }
    itemChanged();
}

JonB

@Mummoc
Does it behave similarly if you try Qt::ItemIsSelectable in place of Qt::ItemIsEnabled?

mrjj

@JonB
well
childItemA1->setFlags(childItemA1->flags() & ~Qt::ItemIsSelectable);
wont propagate but it dont look disabled.

JonB

@mrjj
True, but it's not selectable, which is at least what the OP asked for:

I want the toplevel item to be grayed out and non-clickable

Christian Ehrlicher

QTreeWidget(Item) is a convenience model. If it does not suit for the usecase then you have to implement a model on your own.

Mummoc

@Christian-Ehrlicher said in Disable toplevel item of QTreeWidget:

QTreeWidget(Item) is a convenience model. If it does not suit for the usecase then you have to implement a model on your own.

Yeah i feel that's what i'll have to do eventually. I recently picked up a project without much prior Qt experience, amongst many refactor i removed the QCheckBoxes inside the QTreeWidgetItems (to facilitate keyboard use with the tree since i didn't want to bother myself with keyboard events back then) and now i'll feel like i'll have to retrace back, oh well.

@mrjj

True, but it's not selectable, which is at least what the OP asked for:

My original issue was only a visual one since i already caught mouse and keyboard events to do what i want.

All in all thanks for your replies, what i wanted is in fact not possible so i'll have to find workarounds. Marking the post as solved.

JonB

@Mummoc
Yes, I believe what we are saying is: disabling a QTreeWidgetItem means disabling its descendants, which seems pretty reasonable. It is therefore not possible to have descendants which are themselves enabled.

That's why I suggested all you can use would be selectability (Qt::ItemIsSelectable) as that is allowed to vary such that a parent may be unselectable itself while a descendant is still selectable.

Mummoc

@JonB

Yes, I believe what we are saying is: disabling a QTreeWidgetItem means disabling its descendants, which seems pretty reasonable. It is therefore not possible to have descendants which are themselves enabled.

Yes this seems pretty reasonable and expected as a behavior.

That's why I suggested all you can use would be selectability (Qt::ItemIsSelectable) as that is allowed to vary such that a parent may be unselectable itself while a descendant is still selectable.

I was already playing with this flag (and overriding mouse and keyboards events) for various reasons so my original problem was solely a visual one, so to simulate the graying i used QTreeWidgetItem->setForeground() with a gray color.
So far it does what i need (the checkbox of my QTreeWidgetItem isn't grayed out but this detail is so minor that i'm not bothering with that). So i'm calling it quit now.