How to implement single connection between objects in QML? - qt

Question

In my Qt app I have many windows, and sometimes they need a "Back" button. This button is placed on ToolBar component in the header of the ApplicationWindow .
What I want to achieve, is that this Back button, would have only single connection to other objects , i.e. the connection to the last object that called connect method. Right now with every connect I am getting a new connection and when the signal is emitted, it is called multiple times. Unfortunately Qt doesn'thave disconnectAll method, if it would , that would have solve my problem , I would just call disconnectAll before and then connect and that would implement single connection.
So , how are you doing this functionality in Qt , with a simple method?
Here is a minimal reproducible example, click on the tabs many times, then press 'Back' button and you will see lots of console.log messages. And what I need is this message to correspond to the last object that is connected to the Back button.
import QtQuick 2.11
import QtQuick.Controls 2.4
ApplicationWindow {
visible: true
width: 640
height: 480
title: qsTr("Tabs")
signal back_btn_clicked()
SwipeView {
id: swipeView
anchors.fill: parent
currentIndex: tabBar.currentIndex
Page1Form {
id: page1
function page1_callback() {
console.log("page 1 back button triggered")
}
function install_button() {
enable_back_button(page1_callback)
}
}
Page2Form {
id: page2
function page2_callback() {
console.log("page 2 back button triggered")
}
function install_button() {
enable_back_button(page2_callback)
}
}
function install_back_button(idx) {
if (idx===0) {
page1.install_button()
}
if (idx===1) {
page2.install_button()
}
}
}
Button {
id: btn_back
visible: false
text: "Back Button"
onClicked: back_btn_clicked()
}
footer: TabBar {
id: tabBar
currentIndex: swipeView.currentIndex
TabButton {
text: qsTr("Page 1")
onClicked: swipeView.install_back_button(0)
}
TabButton {
text: qsTr("Page 2")
onClicked: swipeView.install_back_button(1)
}
}
function enable_back_button(func_name) {
btn_back.visible=true
back_btn_clicked.connect(func_name)
}
}
PageForm.ui is defined like this
import QtQuick 2.11
import QtQuick.Controls 2.4
Page {
width: 600
height: 400
header: Label {
text: qsTr("Page 1")
font.pixelSize: Qt.application.font.pixelSize * 2
padding: 10
}
Label {
text: qsTr("You are on Page 1.")
anchors.centerIn: parent
}
}

Answer 1

The simplest hack, I think, would be to store the callback in a property, then in enable_back_button(), reference that property in your disconnect() function, and update the property accordingly with the new callback passed as a function argument. (The rationale for this argument being that the disconnect() function must take in an argument: the slot to disconnect. So we'll need to keep track of it some way or another.)
ApplicationWindow {
visible: true
// ... omitted for brevity
property var prevCallback: null
// ... ofb
function enable_back_button(func_name) {
btn_back.visible=true
if (prevCallback)
back_btn_clicked.disconnect(prevCallback) // disconnect previous callback
back_btn_clicked.connect(func_name) // connect new callback
prevCallback = func_name // update property with new callback
}
}
And this could work on multiple connections as well, by simply changing the storage into an array, then iterating through that.