Correct way to replace widgets (without deleting them) in GUI

[Smeeth]

I am having trouble adding/removing and replacing widgets from my GUI.

I have a class MainWindow, that is my main screen and contains the widgets that are being replaced.

Here is how I set up my GUI in the constructor, using a private member variable QGridLayout mainLayout:

mainLayout = new QGridLayout;
mainLayout->setMargin(0);
mainLayout->setSpacing(0);
mainLayout->addWidget(infoPnl, 0, 0, 1, 2);
mainLayout->addWidget(contentPnl, 1, 0, 1, 1);
mainLayout->addWidget(buttonPnl, 1, 1, 1, 1);

This creates a panel across the top of the window, and two smaller widgets underneath.

I have methods to replace the two panels along the bottom (contentPnl and buttonPnl);

void MainWindow::setContentPane(ContentPanel *content){
    mainLayout->replaceWidget(contentPnl, content);
    contentPnl = content;
    mainLayout->update();
}

This doesn't work properly, as the new panels overwrite and cover up the existing ones. In this example, when I call setContentPanel(), the content panel is added to the GUI correctly but other elements (such as the infoPnl across the top) are covered.

For some reason, if I add a statement to delete the old widget, this works fine and everything looks proper. I don't want to delete the widget, as I store the GUI components elsewhere and don't want them deleted.

void MainWindow::setContentPane(ContentPanel *content){
    mainLayout->replaceWidget(contentPnl, content);
    delete contentPnl;
    contentPnl = content;
    mainLayout->update();
}

Why does deleting the widget change the GUI behavior? How can I achieve this affect without deleting the widget I am replacing?

[SGaist]

Hi,

Aren't rather looking for something like QStackedWidget ?

[Smeeth]

@SGaist I will look into it. This seems much easier and more intuitive than removing and adding things. Thank you