Q3ToolBar Class Reference
[Qt3Support module]

Detailed Description

The Q3ToolBar class provides a movable panel containing widgets such as tool buttons.

A toolbar is a panel that contains a set of controls, usually represented by small icons. It's purpose is to provide quick access to frequently used commands or options. Within a Q3MainWindow the user can drag toolbars within and between the dock areas. Toolbars can also be dragged out of any dock area to float freely as top-level windows.

Q3ToolBar is a specialization of QDockWindow, and so provides all the functionality of a QDockWindow.

To use Q3ToolBar you simply create a Q3ToolBar as a child of a Q3MainWindow, create a number of QToolButton widgets (or other widgets) in left to right (or top to bottom) order and call addSeparator() when you want a separator. When a toolbar is floated the caption used is the label given in the constructor call. This can be changed with setLabel().

You may use most widgets within a toolbar, with QToolButton and QComboBox being the most common. But note that the toolbar's actions must be Q3Actions.

If you create a new widget on an already visible Q3ToolBar, this widget will automatically become visible without needing a show() call. (This differs from every other Qt widget container. We recommend calling show() anyway since we hope to fix this anomaly in a future release.)

Q3ToolBars, like QDockWindows, are located in Q3DockAreas or float as top-level windows. Q3MainWindow provides four Q3DockAreas (top, left, right and bottom). When you create a new toolbar (as in the example above) as a child of a Q3MainWindow the toolbar will be added to the top dock area. You can move it to another dock area (or float it) by calling Q3MainWindow::moveDockWindow(). Dock areas lay out their windows in lines.

If the main window is resized so that the area occupied by the toolbar is too small to show all its widgets a little arrow button (which looks like a right-pointing chevron, '»') will appear at the right or bottom of the toolbar depending on its orientation. Clicking this button pops up a menu that shows the 'overflowing' items. QToolButtons are represented in the menu using their textLabel property, other QAbstractButton subclasses are represented using their text property, and QComboBoxes are represented as submenus, with the caption text being used in the submenu item.

Usually a toolbar will get precisely the space it needs. However, with setHorizontalStretchable(), setVerticalStretchable() or setStretchableWidget() you can tell the main window to expand the toolbar to fill all available space in the specified orientation.

The toolbar arranges its buttons either horizontally or vertically (see orientation() for details). Generally, Q3DockArea will set the orientation correctly for you, but you can set it yourself with setOrientation() and track any changes by connecting to the orientationChanged() signal.

You can use the clear() method to remove all items from a toolbar.

A floating QToolbar (dock window)

See also QToolButton and Q3MainWindow.

Property Documentation