Getting Started Programming with Qt Widgets | Qt Widgets 6.3.0

- Qt 6.3
- Qt Widgets
- Getting Started Programming with Qt Widgets
- Qt 6.3.0 Reference Documentation

# Getting Started Programming with Qt Widgets

A tutorial for Qt Widgets based notepad application.

In this topic, we teach basic Qt knowledge by implementing a simple Notepad application using C++ and the Qt Widgets module. The application is a small text editor which allows you to create a text file, save it, print it, or reopen and edit it again. You can also set the font to be used.

#### Running the Example

To run the example from Qt Creator, open the Welcome mode and select the example from Examples. For more information, visit Building and Running an Example.

#### Creating the Notepad Project

Setting up a new project in Qt Creator is aided by a wizard that guides you step-by-step through the project creation process. The wizard prompts you to enter the settings needed for that particular type of project and creates the project for you.

Note: The UI text in Qt Creator and the contents of the generated files depend on the Qt Creator version that you use.

To create the Notepad project, select File > New Project > Application (Qt) > Qt Widgets Application > Choose, and follow the instructions of the wizard. In the Class Information dialog, type Notepad as the class name and select QMainWindow as the base class.

The Qt Widgets Application wizard creates a project that contains a main source file and a set of files that specify a user interface (Notepad widget):

- CMakeLists.txt - the project file.
- main.cpp - the main source file for the application.
- notepad.cpp - the source file of the notepad class of the Notepad widget.
- notepad.h - the header file of the notepad class for the Notepad widget.
- notepad.ui - the UI form for the Notepad widget.

The files come with the necessary boiler plate code for you to be able to build and run the project. We will take a closer look at the file contents in the following sections.

Learn More

About | Here
--- | ---
Using Qt Creator | Qt Creator
Creating other kind of applications with Qt Creator | Qt Creator Tutorials

#### Main Source File

The wizard generates the following code in the main.cpp file:

     #include "notepad.h"

     #include <QApplication>

     int main(int argc, char *argv[])
     {
         QApplication a(argc, argv);
         Notepad w;
         w.show();
         return a.exec();
     }

We will go through the code line by line. The following lines include the header files for the Notepad widget and QApplication. All Qt classes have a header file named after them.

     #include "notepad.h"

     #include <QApplication>

The following line defines the main function that is the entry point for all C and C++ based applications:

     int main(int argc, char *argv[])

The following line creates a QApplication object. This object manages application-wide resources and is necessary to run any Qt program that uses Qt Widgets. It constructs an application object with `argc` command line arguments run in `argv`. (For GUI applications that do not use Qt Widgets, you can use QGuiApplication instead.)

         QApplication a(argc, argv);

The following line creates the Notepad object. This is the object for which the wizard created the class and the UI file. The user interface contains visual elements that are called `widgets` in Qt. Examples of widgets are text edits, scroll bars, labels, and radio buttons. A widget can also be a container for other widgets; a dialog or a main application window, for example.

         Notepad w;

The following line shows the Notepad widget on the screen in its own window. Widgets can also function as containers. An example of this is QMainWindow which often contains several types of widgets. Widgets are not visible by default; the function show() makes the widget visible.

         w.show();

The following line makes the QApplication enter its event loop. When a Qt application is running, events are generated and sent to the widgets of the application. Examples of events are mouse presses and key strokes.

         return a.exec();

Learn More

About | Here
--- | ---
Widgets and Window Geometry | Window and Dialog Widgets
Events and event handling | The Event System

#### Designing a UI

The wizard generates a user interface definition in XML format: notepad.ui. When you open the notepad.ui file in Qt Creator, it automatically opens in the integrated Qt Designer.

When you build the application, Qt Creator launches the Qt User Interface Compiler (uic) that reads the .ui file and creates a corresponding C++ header file, ui_notepad.h.

##### Using Qt Designer

The wizard creates an application that uses a QMainWindow. It has its own layout to which you can add a menu bar, dock widgets, toolbars, and a status bar. The center area can be occupied by any kind of widget. The wizard places the Notepad widget there.

To add widgets in Qt Designer:

1. In the Qt Creator Edit mode, double-click the notepad.ui file in the Projects view to launch the file in the integrated Qt Designer.
2. Drag and drop widgets Text Edit (QTextEdit) to the form.
3. Press Ctrl+A (or Cmd+A) to select the widgets and click Lay out Vertically (or press Ctrl+L) to apply a vertical layout (QVBoxLayout).
4. Press Ctrl+S (or Cmd+S) to save your changes.

The UI now looks as follows in Qt Designer:

You can view the generated XML file in the code editor:

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
     <ui version="4.0">
      <class>Notepad</class>
      <widget class="QMainWindow" name="Notepad">
       <property name="geometry">
        <rect>
         <x>0</x>
         <y>0</y>
         <width>800</width>
         <height>400</height>
        </rect>
       </property>
       <property name="windowTitle">
        <string>Notepad</string>
       </property>
       <widget class="QWidget" name="centralWidget">
        <layout class="QVBoxLayout" name="verticalLayout">
         <item>
          <widget class="QTextEdit" name="textEdit"/>
         </item>
        </layout>
       </widget>
       <widget class="QMenuBar" name="menuBar">
         ...

The following line contains the XML declaration, which specifies the XML version and character encoding used in the document:

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

The rest of the file specifies an `ui` element that defines a Notepad widget:

     <ui version="4.0">

The UI file is used together with the header and source file of the Notepad class. We will look at the rest of the UI file in the later sections.

##### Notepad Header File

The wizard generated a header file for the Notepad class that has the necessary #includes, a constructor, a destructor, and the Ui object. The file looks as follows:

     #include <QMainWindow>

     QT_BEGIN_NAMESPACE
     namespace Ui {
     class Notepad;
     }
     QT_END_NAMESPACE

     class Notepad : public QMainWindow
     {
         Q_OBJECT

     public:
         explicit Notepad(QWidget *parent = nullptr);
         ~Notepad();

     private:
         Ui::Notepad *ui;
         QString currentFile;
     };

The following line includes QMainWindow that provides a main application window:

     #include <QMainWindow>

The following lines declare the Notepad class in the Ui namespace, which is the standard namespace for the UI classes generated from .ui files by the `uic` tool:

     namespace Ui {
     class Notepad;
     }

The class declaration contains the `Q_OBJECT` macro. It must come first in the class definition, and declares our class as a QObject. Naturally, it must also inherit from QObject. A QObject adds several abilities to a normal C++ class. Notably, the class name and slot names can be queried at runtime. It is also possible to query a slot's parameter types and invoke it.

     class Notepad : public QMainWindow
     {
         Q_OBJECT

The following lines declare a constructor that has a default argument called `parent`. The value 0 indicates that the widget has no parent (it is a top-level widget).

     public:
         explicit Notepad(QWidget *parent = nullptr);

The following line declares a virtual destructor to free the resources that were acquired by the object during its life-cycle. According to the C++ naming convention, destructors have the same name as the class they are associated with, prefixed with a tilde (~). In QObject, destructors are virtual to ensure that the destructors of derived classes are invoked properly when an object is deleted through a pointer-to-base-class.

         ~Notepad();

The following lines declare a member variable which is a pointer to the Notepad UI class. A member variable is associated with a specific class, and accessible for all its methods.

     private:
         Ui::Notepad *ui;
         QString currentFile;
     };

##### Notepad Source File

The source file that the wizard generated for the Notepad class looks as follows:

     #include "notepad.h"
     #include "ui_notepad.h"

     Notepad::Notepad(QWidget *parent) :
         QMainWindow(parent),
         ui(new Ui::Notepad)
     {
         ui->setupUi(this);

     }

The following lines include the Notepad class header file that was generated by the wizard and the UI header file that was generated by the `uic` tool:

     #include "notepad.h"
     #include "ui_notepad.h"

The following line defines the `Notepad` constructor:

     Notepad::Notepad(QWidget *parent) :

The following line calls the QMainWindow constructor, which is the base class for the Notepad class:

         QMainWindow(parent),

The following line creates the UI class instance and assigns it to the `ui` member:

         ui(new Ui::Notepad)

The following line sets up the UI:

     {
         ui->setupUi(this);

In the destructor, we delete the `ui`:

     Notepad::~Notepad()
     {
         delete ui;
     }

##### Project File

The wizard generates the following project file, `CMakeLists.txt`, for us:

     cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.16)
     project(notepad LANGUAGES CXX)

     set(CMAKE_AUTOMOC ON)
     set(CMAKE_AUTOUIC ON)

     if(NOT DEFINED INSTALL_EXAMPLESDIR)
         set(INSTALL_EXAMPLESDIR "examples")
     endif()

     set(INSTALL_EXAMPLEDIR "${INSTALL_EXAMPLESDIR}/widgets/tutorials/notepad")

     find_package(Qt6
         REQUIRED COMPONENTS Core Gui Widgets
         OPTIONAL_COMPONENTS PrintSupport
     )

     qt_add_executable(notepad
         main.cpp
         notepad.cpp notepad.h notepad.ui
     )

     set_target_properties(notepad PROPERTIES
         WIN32_EXECUTABLE TRUE
         MACOSX_BUNDLE TRUE
     )

     target_link_libraries(notepad PUBLIC
         Qt::Core
         Qt::Gui
         Qt::Widgets
     )

     # Resources:
     set(notepad_resource_files
         "images/bold.png"
         "images/copy.png"
         "images/create.png"
         "images/cut.png"
         "images/edit_redo.png"
         "images/edit_undo.png"
         "images/exit.png"
         "images/font.png"
         "images/info.png"
         "images/italic.png"
         "images/new.png"
         "images/open.png"
         "images/paste.png"
         "images/pencil.png"
         "images/print.png"
         "images/save.png"
         "images/save_as.png"
         "images/underline.png"
     )

     qt_add_resources(notepad "notepad"
         PREFIX
             "/"
         FILES
             ${notepad_resource_files}
     )

     if(TARGET Qt::PrintSupport)
         target_link_libraries(notepad PUBLIC
             Qt::PrintSupport
         )
     endif()

     install(TARGETS notepad
         RUNTIME DESTINATION "${INSTALL_EXAMPLEDIR}"
         BUNDLE DESTINATION "${INSTALL_EXAMPLEDIR}"
         LIBRARY DESTINATION "${INSTALL_EXAMPLEDIR}"
     )

The project file specifies the source, header, and UI files included in the project.

Learn More

About | Here
--- | ---
Using Qt Designer | Qt Designer Manual
Layouts | Layout Management, Widgets and Layouts, Layout Examples
The widgets that come with Qt | Qt Widget Gallery
Main windows and main window classes | Application Main Window, Main Window Examples
QObjects and the Qt Object model (This is essential to understand Qt) | Object Model
qmake and the Qt build system | qmake Manual

#### Adding User Interaction

To add functionality to the editor, we start by adding menu items and buttons on a toolbar.

Click on "Type Here", and add the options New, Open, Save, Save as, Print and Exit. This creates 5 lines in the Action Editor below. To connect the actions to slots, right-click an action and select Go to slot > triggered(), and complete the code for that given slot.

If we also want to add the actions to a toolbar, we can assign an icon to each QAction, and then drag the QAction to the toolbar. You assign an icon by entering an icon name in the Icon property of the action concerned. When the QAction has been dragged to the toolbar, clicking the icon will launch the associated slot.

Complete the method `newDocument()`:

     void Notepad::newDocument()
     {
         currentFile.clear();
         ui->textEdit->setText(QString());
     }

The `currentFile` variable is a global variable containing the file presently being edited, and `clear()` clears the text buffer. The `currentFile` variable is defined in the private part of notepad.h:

     private:
         Ui::Notepad *ui;
         QString currentFile;

##### Opening a file

In `notepad.ui`, right click on `actionOpen` and select Go to Slot.

Complete method `open()`.

     void Notepad::open()
     {
         QString fileName = QFileDialog::getOpenFileName(this, "Open the file");
         if (fileName.isEmpty())
             return;
         QFile file(fileName);
         currentFile = fileName;
         if (!file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly | QFile::Text)) {
             QMessageBox::warning(this, "Warning", "Cannot open file: " + file.errorString());
             return;
         }
         setWindowTitle(fileName);
         QTextStream in(&file);
         QString text = in.readAll();
         ui->textEdit->setText(text);
         file.close();
     }

`QFileDialog::getOpenFileName` opens a dialog enabling you to select a file. QFile object `myfile` has the selected `file_name` as parameter. We store the selected file also into the global variable `currentFile` for later purposes. We open the file with `file.open` as a readonly text file. If it cannot be opened, a warning is issued, and the program stops.

We define a QTextStream `instream` for parameter `myfile`. The contents of file `myfile` is copied into QString `text`. `setText(text)` fills the buffer of our editor with `text`.

##### Saving a file

We create the method for saving a file in the same way as for Opening a file, by right clicking on `actionSave`, and selecting Go to Slot.

     void Notepad::save()
     {
         QString fileName;
         // If we don't have a filename from before, get one.
         if (currentFile.isEmpty()) {
             fileName = QFileDialog::getSaveFileName(this, "Save");
             if (fileName.isEmpty())
                 return;
             currentFile = fileName;
         } else {
             fileName = currentFile;
         }
         QFile file(fileName);
         if (!file.open(QIODevice::WriteOnly | QFile::Text)) {
             QMessageBox::warning(this, "Warning", "Cannot save file: " + file.errorString());
             return;
         }
         setWindowTitle(fileName);
         QTextStream out(&file);
         QString text = ui->textEdit->toPlainText();
         out << text;
         file.close();
     }

QFile object `myfile` is linked to global variable `current_file`, the variable that contains the file we were working with. If we cannot open `myfile`, an error message is issued and the method stops. We create a QTextStream `outstream`. The contents of the editor buffer is converted to plain text, and then written to `outstream`.

##### Saving a file under another name

     void Notepad::saveAs()
     {
         QString fileName = QFileDialog::getSaveFileName(this, "Save as");
         if (fileName.isEmpty())
             return;
         QFile file(fileName);

         if (!file.open(QFile::WriteOnly | QFile::Text)) {
             QMessageBox::warning(this, "Warning", "Cannot save file: " + file.errorString());
             return;
         }
         currentFile = fileName;
         setWindowTitle(fileName);
         QTextStream out(&file);
         QString text = ui->textEdit->toPlainText();
         out << text;
         file.close();
     }

This is the same procedure as for Saving a file, the only difference being that here you need to enter a new file name for the file to be created.

##### Printing a File

If you want to use print functionalities, you need to add `PrintSupport` to the project file:

     find_package(Qt6
         REQUIRED COMPONENTS Core Gui Widgets
         OPTIONAL_COMPONENTS PrintSupport
     )

In `notepad.cpp`, we declare a QPrinter object called `printDev`:

     void Notepad::print()
     {
     #if defined(QT_PRINTSUPPORT_LIB) && QT_CONFIG(printer)
         QPrinter printDev;
     #if QT_CONFIG(printdialog)
         QPrintDialog dialog(&printDev, this);
         if (dialog.exec() == QDialog::Rejected)
             return;
     #endif // QT_CONFIG(printdialog)
         ui->textEdit->print(&printDev);
     #endif // QT_CONFIG(printer)
     }

We launch a printer dialog box and store the selected printer in object `printDev`. If we clicked on `Cancel` and did not select a printer, the methods returns. The actual printer command is given with `ui->textEdit->print` with our QPrinter object as parameter.

##### Select a Font

     void Notepad::selectFont()
     {
         bool fontSelected;
         QFont font = QFontDialog::getFont(&fontSelected, this);
         if (fontSelected)
             ui->textEdit->setFont(font);
     }

We declare a boolean indicating if we did select a font with QFontDialog. If so, we set the font with `ui->textEdit->setFont(myfont)`.

##### Copy, Cut, Paste, Undo, and Redo

If you select some text, and want to copy it to the clipboard, you call the appropriate method of `ui->textEdit`. The same counts for cut, paste, undo, and redo.

This table shows the method name to use.

Task | Method called
--- | ---
Copy | ui->textEdit->copy()
Cut | ui->textEdit->cut()
Paste | ui->textEdit->paste()
Undo | ui->textEdit->undo()
Redo | ui->textEdit->redo()

Learn More

About | Here
--- | ---
MDI applications | QMdiArea, MDI Example
Files and I/O devices | QFile, QIODevice
tr() and internationalization | Qt Linguist Manual, Writing Source Code for Translation, Internationalization with Qt

#### Building and Running from the Command Line

To build an example application from the command line, create a build directory for it. Switch to the build directory and run `qt-cmake` to configure your project for building. If the project is configured successfully, the generated files enable you to build the project.

     md <build_directory>
     cd <build_directory>
     <qt_installation_directory>\bin\qt-cmake -GNinja <source_directory>
     <generator>

The commands create an executable in the build directory. The `CMake` tool reads the project file and produces instructions for how to build the application. The generator then uses the instructions to produce the executable binary.

For example, to build the Notepad example on Windows, when using Ninja as the generator, enter the following commands:

     md notepad-build
     cd notepad-build
     C:\Qt\6.3.0\msvc2019_64\bin\qt-cmake -GNinja C:\Examples\notepad
     ninja

If you do not use Ninja as the generator, use the generator-independent CMake command to build the application instead of `ninja`:

     cmake --build

Example project @ code.qt.io