QWorkspace Class Reference
[QtGui module]

Detailed Description

The QWorkspace widget provides a workspace window that can be used in an MDI application.

This class is deprecated. Use QMdiArea instead.

Multiple Document Interface (MDI) applications are typically composed of a main window containing a menu bar, a toolbar, and a central QWorkspace widget. The workspace itself is used to display a number of child windows, each of which is a widget.

The workspace itself is an ordinary Qt widget. It has a standard constructor that takes a parent widget. Workspaces can be placed in any layout, but are typically given as the central widget in a QMainWindow:

 MainWindow::MainWindow()
 {
     workspace = new QWorkspace;
     setCentralWidget(workspace);
     ...
 }

Child windows (MDI windows) are standard Qt widgets that are inserted into the workspace with addWindow(). As with top-level widgets, you can call functions such as show(), hide(), showMaximized(), and setWindowTitle() on a child window to change its appearance within the workspace. You can also provide widget flags to determine the layout of the decoration or the behavior of the widget itself.

To change or retrieve the geometry of a child window, you must operate on its parentWidget(). The parentWidget() provides access to the decorated frame that contains the child window widget. When a child window is maximised, its decorated frame is hidden. If the top-level widget contains a menu bar, it will display the maximised window's operations menu to the left of the menu entries, and the window's controls to the right.

A child window becomes active when it gets the keyboard focus, or when setFocus() is called. The user can activate a window by moving focus in the usual ways, for example by clicking a window or by pressing Tab. The workspace emits a signal windowActivated() when the active window changes, and the function activeWindow() returns a pointer to the active child window, or 0 if no window is active.

The convenience function windowList() returns a list of all child windows. This information could be used in a popup menu containing a list of windows, for example. This feature is also available as part of the Window Menu Solution.

QWorkspace provides two built-in layout strategies for child windows: cascade() and tile(). Both are slots so you can easily connect menu entries to them.

If you want your users to be able to work with child windows larger than the visible workspace area, set the scrollBarsEnabled property to true.

See also QDockWidget and MDI Example.

Member Type Documentation