[solved] Newb to child parent forms and how to access the ui elements of child forms

[thistleknot]

I made a second form with it's own menu :)

and got it to .show()

but I can't seem to access it's plainTextBox.

I've heard a few suggestions from accessing it during constructor call.

but I still wouldn't know how to access it's ui elements.

I read it might have something to do with child parent relationships, as stated here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1946046/accessing-the-child-ui-elements-in-a-qt-ui

Call children() on the top level widget instance.

Assuming your top level widget is called 'tlWidget':

myUI->tlWidget->children()

but I'm new to qt... so I don't know

Here's code that did work when I created a new form automatically:
@
QWidget* win = new QWidget();
QVBoxLayout* layout = new QVBoxLayout(win);
QPlainTextEdit* plainTextEditPatchOutput = new QPlainTextEdit();
layout->addWidget(plainTextEditPatchOutput);

//Load up patch file into a string
QString strPatch = dmp.patch_toText(dmp.patch_make(str1, str2));
QTextStream out(&strPatch);
plainTextEditPatchOutput->setStyleSheet("font: 9pt "Courier";");
plainTextEditPatchOutput->setLineWrapMode(QPlainTextEdit::NoWrap);

//load patch file into plainTextEdit.
plainTextEditPatchOutput->setPlainText(out.readAll());

//show window with patch file loaded
win->show();
@

but

here's the code I want to work with now that has a plainTextBoxOutPatch QPlainTextBox.

@
mMyNewWindow = new PatchOutputWindow(); // Be sure to destroy your window somewhere
mMyNewWindow->show();

QString strPatch = dmp.patch_toText(dmp.patch_make(str1, str2));
QTextStream out(&strPatch);

//mMyNewWindow->setPl

//ui->plainTextEditLeft->setPlainText(in.readAll());
@

the last two commented sections are what I've tried.

I haven't found any good reliable tutorials that describe form creation and accessing forms from the mainwindow form. they all describe different methods. What I did was create a form using the ui form editor and then called it as you see above. Now I just want to access the objects on the form like I do with mainwindow (which is actually diffmatchpatch.cpp). By calling ui->

Update
I think I may have an answer here

http://www.thedazzlersinc.com/source/2012/06/04/qt-show-child-window-from-parent-vice-versa/

[edit added missing coding tags @ SGaist]

[thistleknot]

-btw, I have no idea how to edit my post to make the code more readable, I tried 3 times. I don't see a code formatting button in the editor.-

[thistleknot]

following a tutorial of Inheritance Approach:

http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/designer-using-a-ui-file.html#the-single-inheritance-approach

I made an experimental branch on github showcasing the specific changes.

https://github.com/thistleknot/DiffMatchPatch/commit/b0a7eaede6838916a3dda3b2d652c4b484ba4990

It compiles, but I still don't know how to access it as

uiOutput->

what's missing is diffmatchpatch.cpp line 156

uiOutput-> doesn't seem to do anything

I made sure I did a private member var in my diffpatcmatch.h (basically my mainwindow)Ui::PatchOutputWindow *uiOutput;

I have a plainTextEdit on the uiOutput (patchOutputWindow) interface I'm trying to port a QString to. I was hoping to access it in a fashion similar to ui->.

That form specifically (uiOutput) has a menubar that I specifically desire, and so I created a form first using the form editor, and was trying to import it as a new window/form into my project.

Alternatively I could go with a Tabbed window system. That way I wouldn't have to figure out how to implement these new windows so I can gain access to a pre-made form.

[SGaist]

Hi,

In good written widgets, child widgets don't know anything about their parent. They provide getter and setters for the internal part they allow to modify. If a parent widget needs to react to something happening inside a child widget, it should connect to a signal emitted by the child widget.

So if you want to update the content of a QPlainTextEdit, add a setter in your container widget e.g. DiffMatchPatchWidget::setPatchContent(const QString& patchFilePath); and in that method, update your ui->myPlainTextEdit

Hope it helps

[thistleknot]

what about a signal emitted by the parent widget?

I have a menu drop down where i'm trying to submit a compute, patch algorithm that dumps to a plainTextEdit, but the plainTextEdit I wanted in a new window, and then the option to save it. It's due to the fact that I'm working with multiple documents of similar nature that I need a new window so a person using the app doesn't get confused (even though it's a patch file vs raw txt data).

I think I see what you mean. If a parent needs to react...

In this case the child needs to react... so the child has a getter function.

I don't know why... but I'm used to calling them member accessor functions. Maybe UML?

[thistleknot]

I'm still kind of lost. I'm not trying to update the mainwindow or diffmatchpatch.cpp at all, I'm trying to update patchoutputwindow.cpp with a save slot from diffmatchpatch.cpp. So it's the parent window signalling the child window. So... I would just setup a public function that returns a QString? Then this member function is available by invoking the object and it's object.<function name>?

[thistleknot]

Yeah, i'm completely lost.

I've been working on this all day. My code worked before by pushing objects to a new window that was locally created so I had no issues with encapsulation. But now...

I tried reading this article and implementing it

http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/signalsandslots.html

but got stuck here:

Counter a, b;
QObject::connect(&a, &Counter::valueChanged,
                 &b, &Counter::setValue);

a.setValue(12);     // a.value() == 12, b.value() == 12
b.setValue(48);     // a.value() == 12, b.value() == 48

Here's my code (compiles)

https://github.com/thistleknot/DiffMatchPatch/commit/b0a7eaede6838916a3dda3b2d652c4b484ba4990

I'm basically trying to emit a QString from one form to another form.

[thistleknot]

I think this may be my answer

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15833535/transfer-data-between-forms-in-qt

[thistleknot]

I got it by creating a public function on the receiving form:

@
void setOutputWindowText(QString);

void PatchOutputWindow::setOutputWindowText(QString outputString) {
ui->plainTextEditPatchOutput->setPlainText(outputString);
}
@

and calling it

@
diff_match_patch dmp;

QString str1 = ui->plainTextEditLeft->toPlainText();
QString str2 = ui->plainTextEditRight->toPlainText();

childForm = new PatchOutputWindow(this);

//parent window can be in front of child window
//childForm = new PatchOutputWindow();

QString strPatch = dmp.patch_toText(dmp.patch_make(str1, str2));
QTextStream out(&strPatch);

childForm->setOutputWindowText(strPatch);

childForm->show();
@

[edit: added missing coding tags @ SGaist]

[SGaist]

That's it

On a side note, why the QTextStream ?

Unless you plan to have multiple PatchOutputWindow shown at the same time, you have a design problem here. Each time you will call the second part of your code, you will replace childForm with a new widget.

[thistleknot]

the sample code used QTextStream is why. What do you suggest.

I'm aware of the duplicate childforms, not a big concern, but a user may desire to run multiple patches before saving them.

[SGaist]

Just that the out variable is never used so there's not need to have it there.

Then you should write your code taking that possibility into account