How can I connect a signal to QWidget::update slot? - qt

Question

I am using Qt5 with new signal/slot syntax.
I don't know why the following code doesn't work:
QWidget *widget = new QWidget();
connect(pipeline, &Pipeline::NewFrame, widget, &QWidget::update);
I get the error:
no matching member function for call to 'connect' why?
Pipeline class inherits from QObject and NewFrame signal has the same signature as QWidget::update
class Pipeline
: public QObject
{
Q_OBJECT
Q_DISABLE_COPY(Pipeline)
public:
Pipeline(QObject *parent);
signals:
void NewFrame();
};
I am using QtCreator on Arch Linux with g++.

Answer 1

TL;DR: The pipeline should be signaling an image, and the widget should have a SetImage method:
class Pipeline : public QObject {
Q_OBJECT // important
public:
Q_SIGNAL void NewFrame(const QImage &);
...
};
class Viewer : public QWidget {
Q_OBJECT // important
QImage m_image;
public:
Q_SLOT void SetImage(const QImage &image) {
m_image = image;
update();
}
...
};
This is how you'd be using it - note that Viewer knows nothing about Pipeline, because it shouldn't: it just shows new frames, wherever they come from.
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
QApplication app(argc, argv);
Pipeline pipeline;
Viewer viewer;
QObject::connect(&pipeline, &Pipeline::NewFrame, &viewer, &Viewer::SetImage);
return app.exec();
}
Connecting anything to QWidget::update directly, especially from external sources, is usually a sign of bad design.
To satisfy your curiosity, you can use a lambda or qOverload to specify what you're connecting to, to fix the very error you're seeing - caused by ambiguity of the the type of the method pointer. Any of the following will work:
connect(…, widget, qOverload<>(&QWidget::update));
or
auto constexpr update = qOverload<>(&QWidget::update));
connect(…, widget, update);
or
connect(…, widget, [widget]{ widget->update(); });