Qt 4.3: Qt Designer Manual

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# Qt Designer Manual

Qt Designer is Trolltech's tool for designing and building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) from Qt components. It allows you to design and build widgets and dialogs using on-screen forms using the same widgets that will be used in your application. Components created with Qt Designer can also take advantage of Qt's signals and slots, and they can be previewed so that you can ensure that they will look and feel exactly as you intended.

## Using Qt Designer

- Getting Started with Qt Designer
  - Launching Designer
  - The User Interface
- Designing a Component with Qt Designer
  - Creating a Form
  - Composing a Dialog
  - Creating a Layout
  - Configuring Connections
- Qt Designer's Widget Editing Mode
  - Managing Forms
  - Editing a Form
  - The Property Editor
  - Dynamic Properties
  - The Object Inspector
  - Layouts
  - Applying and Breaking Layouts
  - Horizontal and Vertical Layouts
  - The Grid Layout
  - Splitter Layouts
  - Shortcut Keys
  - Previewing Forms
- Using Containers in Qt Designer
  - General Features
  - Frames
  - Group Boxes
  - Stacked Widgets
  - Tab Widgets
  - Toolbox Widgets
  - Dock Widgets
- Creating Main Windows in Qt Designer
  - The Main Window Template
  - Menus
  - Toolbars
  - Actions
  - Dock Widgets
- Qt Designer's Signals and Slots Editing Mode
  - Connecting Objects
  - Editing and Deleting Connections
- Qt Designer's Buddy Editing Mode
  - Linking Labels to Buddy Widgets
  - Removing Buddy Connections
- Qt Designer's Tab Order Editing Mode
  - Setting the Tab Order
- Editing Resources with Qt Designer
  - Defining a Resource File
  - Using the Resources
- Customizing Qt Designer Forms
  - Modifying the Form Settings
- Using Custom Widgets with Qt Designer
  - Handling Custom Widgets
  - Promoting Widgets
  - User Defined Custom Widgets

## Using Forms and Components

- Using a Component in Your Application
  - Compile Time Form Processing
  - The Direct Approach
  - The Single Inheritance Approach
  - The Multiple Inheritance Approach
  - Run Time Form Processing
  - The UiTools Approach
  - Automatic Connections
  - A Dialog Without Auto-Connect
  - Widgets and Dialogs with Auto-Connect

## Customizing Qt Designer

- Creating Custom Widgets for Qt Designer
  - Getting Started
  - Providing an Interface Description
  - Plugin Requirements
  - Creating Well Behaved Widgets
  - Building and Installing the Plugin
  - Related Examples
- Creating Custom Widget Extensions
  - Extension Types
  - Creating an Extension
  - Exposing an Extension to Qt Designer
  - Creating an Extension Factory
  - Accessing Qt Designer's Extension Manager
  - Related Examples
- Qt Designer's UI File Format

## Figures and Hints

- Qt Designer's Main Window
- Qt Designer's Widget Box
- Choosing a Form
- Editing Modes
- Adding Widgets to a Form
- The Property Editor
- Placing Widgets in Layouts
- Connecting Widgets
- Previewing a Form
- Selecting Objects
- Drag and drop
- Editing Properties
- The Object Inspector
- Inserting Objects into a Layout
- Frames
- Group Boxes
- Stacked Widgets
- Tab Widgets
- Toolbox Widgets
- Dock Widgets
- Creating a Menu
- Creating a Menu Entry
- The Action Editor
- Adding an Action
- Adding a Dock Widget
- Highlighted Objects
- Making a Connection
- Choosing Signals and Slots
- Connecting to a Form
- The Signal/Slot Editor
- Deleting Connections
- Making Buddies
- Resource Files
- Editing Resource Files
- Using Resources
- Layout Function

## Legal Notices

Some source code in Qt Designer is licensed under specific highly permissive licenses from the original authors. Trolltech gratefully acknowledges these contributions to Qt Designer and all uses of Qt Designer should also acknowledge these contributions and quote the following license statements in an appendix to the documentation.

- Implementation of the Recursive Shadow Casting Algorithm in Qt Designer

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