Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer

Toolbars

Toolbars are added to a main window in a similar way to the menu bar: Select the Add Tool Bar option from the form's context menu. Alternatively, if there is an existing toolbar in the main window, you can click the arrow at its right-hand end to create a new toolbar.

Toolbar buttons are created by using the action system to populate each toolbar, rather than by using specific button widgets from the widget box. Since actions can be represented by menu entries and toolbar buttons, they can be moved between menus and toolbars. To share an action between a menu and a toolbar, drag its icon from the Action Editor to the toolbar rather than from the menu where its entry is located.

New actions for menus and toolbars can be created in the Action Editor.

Actions

With the menu bar and the toolbars in place, it's time to populate them with actions: Qt Designer provides an action editor to simplify the creation and management of actions.

The Action Editor Enable the action editor by opening the Tools menu, and switching on the Action Editor option. The action editor allows the user to create New actions, as well as deleting (Delete) actions. It also provides a search facility (Filter) using the action's text. Since Qt 4.4, Qt Designer's action editor can be viewed in the classic Icon View as well as Detailed View (see screenshot). You can also copy and paste actions between menus, toolbars and forms.

To create an action, use the action editor's New button which will pop up an input dialog. Provide the new action with a Text. This is the text that will appear in a menu entry and as the actions tooltip. The text is also automatically added to an "action" prefix creating the action's Object Name.

In addition, the dialog provides the option of selecting an Icon for the action, as well as removing the current icon.

Once the action is created, it can be used wherever actions are applicable.

Adding an Action To add an action to a menu or a toolbar, simply press the left mouse button over the action in the action editor, and drag it to where it is required. Qt Designer provides highlighted guide lines that tell you where the action will be added. Release the mouse button to add the action when you have found the right spot.

Dock Widgets

Since dock widgets are container widgets, they can be added to a form in the usual way. When added to a form, dock widgets are not placed in any particular dock area by default; you need to set the docked property to true for each widget and choose an appropriate value for its dockWidgetArea property.

Adding a Dock Widget To add a dock widget, simply drag one from the Containers section of the widget box, and drop it onto the main form area. Just as with other widgets, its properties can be modified with the Property Editor. Since dock widgets can be optionally floated as independent tool windows, it is useful to give them window titles by setting their windowTitle properties. This also helps to identify them on the form.

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