Using a Designer UI File in Your C++ Application

To use the direct approach, we include the ui_calculatorform.h file directly in main.cpp:

#include "ui_calculatorform.h"

The main function creates the calculator widget by constructing a standard QWidget that we use to host the user interface described by the calculatorform.ui file.

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QApplication app(argc, argv);
    QWidget widget;
    Ui::CalculatorForm ui;
    ui.setupUi(&widget);

    widget.show();
    return app.exec();
}

In this case, the Ui::CalculatorForm is an interface description object from the ui_calculatorform.h file that sets up all the dialog's widgets and the connections between its signals and slots.

The direct approach provides a quick and easy way to use simple, self-contained components in your applications. However, componens created with Qt Designer often require close integration with the rest of the application code. For instance, the CalculatorForm code provided above will compile and run, but the QSpinBox objects will not interact with the QLabel as we need a custom slot to carry out the add operation and display the result in the QLabel. To achieve this, we need to use the single inheritance approach.

To use the single inheritance approach, we subclass a standard Qt widget and include a private instance of the form's user interface object. This can take the form of:

• A member variable

• A pointer member variable

Using a Member Variable▲

#include "ui_calculatorform.h"

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

HEADERS     = calculatorform.h

class CalculatorForm : public QWidget
{
    Q_OBJECT

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

private slots:
    void updateResult();

private:
    Ui::CalculatorForm ui;
};

CalculatorForm::CalculatorForm(QWidget *parent)
    : QWidget(parent)
{
    ui.setupUi(this);
    connect(ui.inputSpinBox1, &QSpinBox::valueChanged, this, &CalculatorForm::updateResult);
    connect(ui.inputSpinBox2, &QSpinBox::valueChanged, this, &CalculatorForm::updateResult);
}

Using a Pointer Member Variable▲

namespace Ui {
    class CalculatorForm;
}

class CalculatorForm : public QWidget
...
virtual ~CalculatorForm();
...
private:
    Ui::CalculatorForm *ui;
...

#include "ui_calculatorform.h"

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

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

Forms created with Qt Designer can be subclassed together with a standard QWidget-based class. This approach makes all the user interface components defined in the form directly accessible within the scope of the subclass, and enables signal and slot connections to be made in the usual way with the connect() function.

This approach is used in the Multiple Inheritance example.

We need to include the header file that uic generates from the calculatorform.ui file, as follows:

#include "ui_calculatorform.h"

The class is defined in a similar way to the one used in the single inheritance approach, except that this time we inherit from both QWidget and Ui::CalculatorForm, as follows:

class CalculatorForm : public QWidget, private Ui::CalculatorForm
{
    Q_OBJECT

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

private slots:
    void on_inputSpinBox1_valueChanged(int value);
    void on_inputSpinBox2_valueChanged(int value);
};

We inherit Ui::CalculatorForm privately to ensure that the user interface objects are private in our subclass. We can also inherit it with the public or protected keywords in the same way that we could have made ui public or protected in the previous case.

The constructor for the subclass performs many of the same tasks as the constructor used in the single inheritance example:

CalculatorForm::CalculatorForm(QWidget *parent)
    : QWidget(parent)
{
    setupUi(this);
}

In this case, the widgets used in the user interface can be accessed in the same say as a widget created in code by hand. We no longer require the ui prefix to access them.

Qt notifies applications if the user interface language changes by sending an event of the type QEvent::LanguageChange. To call the member function retranslateUi() of the user interface object, we reimplement QWidget::changeEvent() in the form class, as follows:

void CalculatorForm::changeEvent(QEvent *e)
{
    QWidget::changeEvent(e);
    switch (e->type()) {
    case QEvent::LanguageChange:
        ui->retranslateUi(this);
        break;
    default:
        break;
   }
}

A resource file containing a UI file is required to process forms at run time. Also, the application needs to be configured to use the QtUiTools module. This is done by including the following declarations in a CMake project file, ensuring that the application is compiled and linked appropriately.

find_package(Qt6 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Core Gui UiTools Widgets)
target_link_libraries(textfinder PUBLIC
    Qt::Core
    Qt::Gui
    Qt::UiTools
    Qt::Widgets
)

For qmake:

QT += uitools

The QUiLoader class provides a form loader object to construct the user interface. This user interface can be retrieved from any QIODevice, e.g., a QFile object, to obtain a form stored in a project's resource file. The QUiLoader::load() function constructs the form widget using the user interface description contained in the file.

The QtUiTools module classes can be included using the following directive:

#include <QtUiTools>

The QUiLoader::load() function is invoked as shown in this code from the Text Finder example:

static QWidget *loadUiFile(QWidget *parent)
{
    QFile file(u":/forms/textfinder.ui"_s);
    file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly);

    QUiLoader loader;
    return loader.load(&file, parent);
}

In a class that uses QtUiTools to build its user interface at run time, we can locate objects in the form using QObject::findChild(). For example, in the following code, we locate some components based on their object names and widget types:

    ui_findButton = findChild<QPushButton*>("findButton");
    ui_textEdit = findChild<QTextEdit*>("textEdit");
    ui_lineEdit = findChild<QLineEdit*>("lineEdit");

Processing forms at run-time gives the developer the freedom to change a program's user interface, just by changing the UI file. This is useful when customizing programs to suit various user needs, such as extra large icons or a different colour scheme for accessibility support.

We define the dialog in the same way as before, but now include a slot in addition to the constructor:

class ImageDialog : public QDialog, private Ui::ImageDialog
{
    Q_OBJECT

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

private slots:
    void checkValues();
};

The checkValues() slot will be used to validate the values provided by the user.

In the dialog's constructor we set up the widgets as before, and connect the Cancel button's clicked() signal to the dialog's reject() slot. We also disable the autoDefault property in both buttons to ensure that the dialog does not interfere with the way that the line edit handles return key events:

ImageDialog::ImageDialog(QWidget *parent)
    : QDialog(parent)
{
    setupUi(this);
    okButton->setAutoDefault(false);
    cancelButton->setAutoDefault(false);
    ...
    connect(okButton, &QAbstractButton::clicked, this, &ImageDialog::checkValues);
}

We connect the OK button's clicked() signal to the dialog's checkValues() slot which we implement as follows:

void ImageDialog::checkValues()
{
    if (nameLineEdit->text().isEmpty()) {
        QMessageBox::information(this, tr("No Image Name"),
            tr("Please supply a name for the image."), QMessageBox::Cancel);
    } else {
        accept();
    }
}

This custom slot does the minimum necessary to ensure that the data entered by the user is valid - it only accepts the input if a name was given for the image.

Although it is easy to implement a custom slot in the dialog and connect it in the constructor, we could instead use QMetaObject's auto-connection facilities to connect the OK button's clicked() signal to a slot in our subclass. uic automatically generates code in the dialog's setupUi() function to do this, so we only need to declare and implement a slot with a name that follows a standard convention:

void on_<object name>_<signal name>(<signal parameters>);

Using this convention, we can define and implement a slot that responds to mouse clicks on the OK button:

class ImageDialog : public QDialog, private Ui::ImageDialog
{
    Q_OBJECT

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

private slots:
    void on_okButton_clicked();
};

Another example of automatic signal and slot connection would be the Text Finder with its on_findButton_clicked() slot.

We use QMetaObject's system to enable signal and slot connections:

    QMetaObject::connectSlotsByName(this);

This enables us to implement the slot, as shown below:

void TextFinder::on_findButton_clicked()
{
    QString searchString = ui_lineEdit->text();
    QTextDocument *document = ui_textEdit->document();

    bool found = false;

    // undo previous change (if any)
    document->undo();

    if (searchString.isEmpty()) {
        QMessageBox::information(this, tr("Empty Search Field"),
                                 tr("The search field is empty. "
                                    "Please enter a word and click Find."));
    } else {
        QTextCursor highlightCursor(document);
        QTextCursor cursor(document);

        cursor.beginEditBlock();
    ...
        cursor.endEditBlock();

        if (found == false) {
            QMessageBox::information(this, tr("Word Not Found"),
                                     tr("Sorry, the word cannot be found."));
        }
    }
}

Automatic connection of signals and slots provides both a standard naming convention and an explicit interface for widget designers to work to. By providing source code that implements a given interface, user interface designers can check that their designs actually work without having to write code themselves.