Qt: Why children widgets overlapping in QGridLayout? - qt

I have an widget x with fixed size. Then at first I took a QScrollArea and then a QGridLayout which I set as the layout of scrollAreaWidgetContent. Then I started adding some widget x in the layout at (0,0), (0,1), (1,0), (1,1)... of grid layout. Then when I ran the program, strangely when I shrink the window vertically, the widgets overlap.
And as expected, when I increase the window size vertically, they are not overlapped anymore.
But strange thing is this problem does not occurring when I shrink window horizontally. For example,
My question is, why this is happening and more importantly, keeping in mind I want to use gridlayout, how to solve this problem?

As you said in your question:
Your widget has a fixed size, so the layout does not shrink them when there is no space left.
So the question is: what do you want to happen when you shrink the window?
If you want to shrink your widget you have to change the sizePolicy of your widgets from "Fixed" to "Preferred".
If you want to reduce the number of widgets in the layout, then you could add an event handler in the resize event and remove them
If you want to disallow the shrinking of the window, then you need to set the sizePolicy of the scrollarea to a fixed or minimumSize

Related

How to restrict growth (size) of layout in Qt Designer?

When I maximize my window, I want to restrict a vertical layout (and the entire row below it also) so that it has a specific size (lets say a width of 200). How can I achieve this? Below is what I get now. The buttons are stretched too far. I want them to keep a width of 200.
To stop the buttons stretching, use the following steps in Qt Designer:
click on scrollArea in the Object Inspector
click on Break Layout on the toolbar
click on scrollArea in the Object Inspector
click on Lay Out in a Grid on the toolbar
click on scrollAreaWidgetContents in the Object Inspector
scroll down to the bottom of the Property Editor
change layoutColumnStretch to 0,1
These steps should remove an empty column from the scroll-area grid-layout, and make the second column stretch to take up the available space when the window is resized.
You just need to restrict the maximum width of all widgets (in this case the buttons) within the layouts of this grid column to the expected size, else they'll just keep expanding. You may also have to fiddle the horizontal size policy; I seem to remember that buttons were a bit tricky in this regard (or was that the height?), but can't test it right now.
The layout size contraint you tried only applies to the layout's direct parent widget, if it has one, which isn't the case for the vertical layouts here.

Is it possible to give a size by ratio to qt designer ?

For exemple, I want the value of the layoutLeftMargin property to be equal to 1/3 of the parent widget. So when I will resize the windows, the ratio of the widget will still stay the same.
Else, if it's not possible with QtDesigner, how can I do it with code ?
No, Margins are specified in pixels, they can't be relative to the parent widget's size.
However, You can do that in the designer by putting your whole current layout in a Horizontal Layout, add a Horizontal Spacer to the left of it, assign suitable layoutStretch values in the horizontal layout (In your example, this should be 1,2, meaning the original layout will take up twice the space taken up by the spacer, so that the spacer gets 1/3 of the parent widget).

How to set the desired size of a QMainWindow with QScrollArea?

I am working on a project where I have to display a pretty large (vertically) main Widget.
In the initial Version of my GUI it was just added as the central Widget of a QMainWindow, which caused the Problem that on small screen resolutions the controls on the Bottom of the Widget are unreachable.
To solve this i wrapped a QScrollArea around the main Widget, but now the main window is always relatively small even if it doesn't have to.
What do i need to change so the Main Windows (vertical) size is large enough to show all the contents unless it would be too large for the screen resolution? Also I don't want it to be stretched, so simply always using the whole vertical screen resolution is not an option. Ideally the size should be fixed to the size needed by the contents (w/o the scroll area) and only smaller where needed.
Overriding the sizeHint method did only resulted in a small enlargement of the Window and setting the minimal height brings me back to the beginning where some of the controls are not assessable on small resolutions.
Since i am new to QT I am actually out of ideas how to google the solution because most Solutions I can find are about sizing components inside a Window and not the Window itself.
By default a QScrollArea will not attempt to expand to fit its contents. In order to do this you will need to re-implement QScrollArea's sizeHint() to return the size of QScrollArea's child widgets.
In your question it sounds like you were trying to re-implement MainWindow's sizeHint? re-implementing sizeHint on the top-level window will have no effect as sizeHint designed for use with widgets inside layouts.

Qt: How do i set the height on a Vertical layout?

I'm having trouble using the layout manager system with Qt. This is going to be a Symbian app, so it should resize to different devices.
This is done by using the Layouts.
On the image below I used the Vertical Layout, but I don't understand how I can decide how much each cell should take in width and height.
I want the blue to be a top label background, but I don't want it to be as high as it is now.
Does anyone know how I can do this? (I'm new to Qt :))
You can set the maximum size for a widget by right clicking it and selecting 'Size Constraints'. Under that menu you can find actions that allow you to set the current displayed size as the maximum / minimum size for vertical / horizontal or both directions.
You can also set the numbers by hand by selecting the widget and by setting the number in the 'Property Editor'. They should be under the QWidget properties.
You cannot set the Height of a vertical layout directly, but you can set the height of the widget in which the vertical layout is.
If you want to split your Widgets so that the top widget takes 33.33% of the space, use the Stretch values. Set the top widget to 1 and the bottom widget to 2.

QT Layout - initial directions

I am new to QT. I'm trying to understand the layout mechanism by trying to implement this small window seen below. It has the following elements under the QWidget that's the main window:
One big QWidget that stretches on all the client area.
Two QWidget containers on the top of the window. Both should have the same height, but the right one stretches horizontally, as the window grows/shrinks.
one button container widget on the top right, with fixed height and width
Large QWidget container filling the rest of the client area, that should resize as the window resizes.
The parent window itself is resizeable.
I'm looking for hints as to what layout I should use. How do I achieve this programatically? define what stretches automatically, what stays with a fix size? and how the proportions are kept where they need to be kept.
I'd appreciate any pointer you may have.
The easiest, and IMHO best, way to accomplish this is via the QHBoxLayout and QVBoxLayouts. You can do this via the designer in QtCreator, but I find it doesn't work perfectly if you need to adapt things over time. If it's a static set of widgets, I do suggest designing it using the QtCreator designer as it'll greatly simplify your life.
If you're going to do it programatically, the main window should be set to use a QVBoxLayout and then two sub-QVBoxLayout's after that, where the bottom one is configured to take any space it can get. Then in the top QVBoxLayout, add a QHBoxLayout with your two upper components.
to set a widget to fixed size in code you call setFixedSize( int h, int w ) on the widget. To do it in Designer click on the widget and look in the property editor in the QWidget section. open the sizePolicy thingy and set horizontal and/or vertical to fixed. Then open Geometry and set the width and Height.
To make them stretch at different ratios in code you use a separate argument when using a box layout. eg layout->addWidget( button1, 1 ); layout->addWidget (button2, 2); this would cause button2 to expand at twice the rate of button1. To do this in designer, open the sizePolicy property of the widgets and set the HorizontalStrech and/or VerticalSretch. Note that the size policy needs to not be Fixed in this case for the direction you want to set the stretch on. Also it will never let a widget shrink below its minimum size (it would rather mess up the ratio than shrink something too small).

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