Anchoring the widgets for resizing with the form
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From quick googling it appears as if Qt does not have the anchors and I am supposed to use the layouts. But I cannot find any info on how I can anchor the layouts to the form.
Do I need to write a signal handler to resize the layouts with the form? -
I don't understand your question.
What anchors do you need?
Layouts in Qt typically resize automatically if the form is resized. -
hi
If you place something widget on a from in Designer
and then right click the form, the last menu allows you to
add a layout.
This way you can add layout to most Widgets, not just forms.
But place other widget first inside the widget/form then right click. -
I think I misunderstood the correlation between the layouts in Qt Designer and the layouts mentioned in the tutorials. I thought that by layout they meant dropping one of the very top 3 components from the Qt Designer toolbox onto a form and adding all widgets to the layout, as I did not know that layout was something different and had to be accessed through a pop up menu instead.
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Ok
tested it.
They do not work the same. Sort like floating layouts or for layout in layout i guess.
Using right click will work better. -
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oh, just as a note.
Minimum and maximum size property is often useful with layouts.
Also on the layout layoutRow/colStretch if u want to change how much
each get. normal is 50/50
so if u write 2,1 the first get twice as much.
That was not intuitive and I still miss the ability to use %
But over all it works good. -
@nulluse said:
I think I misunderstood the correlation between the layouts in Qt Designer and the layouts mentioned in the tutorials. I thought that by layout they meant dropping one of the very top 3 components from the Qt Designer toolbox onto a form and adding all widgets to the layout, as I did not know that layout was something different and had to be accessed through a pop up menu instead.
It's basically the same thing, only the way the code is generated is a bit different. When you drop a layout from the toolbox, it's inserted as a child layout (layouts can be nested) to the widget's layout. If your widget doesn't have a layout (which is the default) it floats around. When you use the context menu, you set the layout of the widget, hence your elements are not floating. In code this'd look like this:
QWidget * widget; //< The widget initialized from the form // This is approximately what's generated when you drag a layout from the toolbox QLayout * droppedFromToolbox; //< The layout that's generated when you drag it from the toolbox QLayout * widgetLayout = widget->layout(); if (widgetLayout) widgetLayout ->addItem(droppedFromToolbox); // This is what's generated (again approximately) when you use the context menu. QLayout * fromContextMenu; //< The layout selected from the context menu widget->setLayout(fromContextMenu);You can see those are a bit different, but work on the same principle.
Kind regards.
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After reading more on this I realize that the concept of layouts (also used in Android etc) is horrible comparing with straightforward, flexible and easy to set up system of anchors.
With the layouts you have to- set up your form for a layout before adding any widgets
if you missed #1 you are summarily screwed.
- choose by way of trial and error the layout that least mucks up the intended design
- freeze many widgets by entering min and max sizes (typing tons of numbers)
all instead of flipping the yes/no anchors of the widgets.
Looks like Qt came to their senses in Qt Quick (whatever it is) which now supports the anchors, but not in the regular .ui files.
To sum it up, this is a very counter-intuitive niche concept where the UI developer is totally at the mercy of the pre-defined layouts and once that is chosen, QtDesigner does not even support full undo function. If you want to support nothing but devices and smartphones, this is probably Okay, but for a normal desktop layouts are very counter-intuitive and counter-productive.
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"niche concept"?
Are you sure layouts are a niche concept?
As far as I know Java GUI for example uses layouts as well (see https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/layout/visual.html). I like layouts - they are very flexible and powerful. -
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@nulluse
The layout define the size.Not reversed.
If you dont want the layout size for all widgets ,
u can then adjust with min/max sizes on individual widgets.
You can also instruct layout if u want to be greedy and use all space/and or other options. -
@mrjj said:
@nulluse
If you dont want the layout size for all widgets ,
u can then adjust with min/max sizes on individual widgets.
You can also instruct layout if u want to be greedy and use all space/and or other options.Exactly! This is double work, and very tedious one, versus defining the anchors.
The anchors do not require defining fixed sizes. -
@nulluse
Yeah but layouts dont either.
Its assumed u want same size for all.
So only if u dont , u set it.
Its not double work as often NOT needed.
I want same size for all anyway.
and u can have margins if u want and many other nice tweaks. -
@nulluse said:
Exactly! This is double work, and very tedious one, versus defining the anchors.
The anchors do not require defining fixed sizes.Neither do layouts. There are things called resize policies and stretch factors, which I suppose you should take a look at. Also how do you anchor two elements back to back such that one of them takes 2/3 of the space and one 1/3, ain't it necessary to go and set that manually?
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@mrjj said:
@nulluse
Yeah but layouts dont either.
Its assumed u want same size for all.
So only if u dont , u set it.
Its not double work as often NOT needed.
I want same size for all anyway.
and u can have margins if u want and many other nice tweaks.You probably need to look at a system that uses anchors to realize how much more productive they allow the developers to be.
