Can I get mouse events in a QGraphicsItem? - qt

Question

I have subclassed QGraphicsRectItem, and it's not receiving any mouse events. I've seen other questions similar to this say I need to enable mouse tracking, but setMouseTracking is in QWidget, and QGraphicsItem does not appear to be a QWidget.
I've implemented paint, and that's working. In my subclassed QGraphicsView I am getting mouse events.
The docs seem to think I should just override the mousePressEvent function (for example) and I should start getting the events. Whether I forward the mousePressEvent to the superclass of my QGraphicsView or not doesn't seem to make any difference.

Answer 1

In your subclassed QGraphicsView, you need to call the default implementations of overridden mouse event methods if you want them to propagate down to the items. For example:
CustomView::mousePressEvent(QMouseEvent *event)
{
// handle the event as you like
QGraphicsView::mousePressEvent(event); // then call default implementation
}
If you want to accept hover events, you need to call QGraphicsItem::setAcceptHoverEvents(true);. Otherwise you do not need to enable any particular mouse tracking.
EDIT: Here is a full working example:
#include <QtGui>
class CustomView : public QGraphicsView
{
protected:
void mousePressEvent(QMouseEvent *event)
{
qDebug() << "Custom view clicked.";
QGraphicsView::mousePressEvent(event);
}
};
class CustomItem : public QGraphicsRectItem
{
protected:
void mousePressEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
qDebug() << "Custom item clicked.";
}
};
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
QApplication a(argc, argv);
CustomItem item;
item.setRect(20, 20, 60, 60);
QGraphicsScene scene(0, 0, 100, 100);
scene.addItem(&item);
CustomView view;
view.setScene(&scene);
view.show();
return a.exec();
}

Answer 2

I went through the same problems you have encountered and I wanted to add some insights on top of Anthony's really good answer. Here is an example I wrote showing some features that can be implemented using the mouse events and the keyboard events.
Note that the events do not propagate to QGraphicsItems in a QGraphicsItemGroup or in a QList<QGraphicsItem> (it took me a while to figure that out).
#include <QtGui>
#include <QGraphicsRectItem>
#include <QGraphicsView>
#include <QApplication>
#include <QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent>
class CustomItem : public QGraphicsEllipseItem
{
protected:
void mousePressEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
if(event->button() == Qt::LeftButton) {
if(event->modifiers() == Qt::ShiftModifier) {
qDebug() << "Custom item left clicked with shift key.";
// add the item to the selection
setSelected(true);
} else if(event->modifiers() == Qt::AltModifier){
qDebug() << "Custom item left clicked with alt key.";
// resize the item
double radius = boundingRect().width() / 2.0;
_center = QPointF(boundingRect().topLeft().x() + pos().x() + radius, boundingRect().topLeft().y() + pos().y() + radius);
QPointF pos = event->scenePos();
qDebug() << boundingRect() << radius << this->pos() << pos << event->pos();
double dist = sqrt(pow(_center.x()-pos.x(), 2) + pow(_center.y()-pos.y(), 2));
if(dist / radius > 0.8) {
qDebug() << dist << radius << dist / radius;
_isResizing = true;
} else {
_isResizing = false;
}
} else {
qDebug() << "Custom item left clicked.";
QGraphicsItem::mousePressEvent(event);
event->accept();
}
} else if(event->button() == Qt::RightButton) {
qDebug() << "Custom item right clicked.";
event->ignore();
}
}
void mouseMoveEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
if(event->modifiers() == Qt::AltModifier && _isResizing){
QPointF pos = event->scenePos();
double dist = sqrt(pow(_center.x()-pos.x(), 2) + pow(_center.y()-pos.y(), 2));
setRect(_center.x()-this->pos().x()-dist, _center.y()-this->pos().y()-dist, dist*2, dist*2);
} else if(event->modifiers() != Qt::AltModifier) {
qDebug() << "Custom item moved.";
QGraphicsItem::mouseMoveEvent(event);
qDebug()<<"moved"<<pos();
}
}
void mouseReleaseEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
if(event->modifiers() == Qt::AltModifier && _isResizing) {
_isResizing = false;
} else if(event->modifiers() != Qt::ShiftModifier) {
QGraphicsItem::mouseReleaseEvent(event);
}
}
int type() const
{
// Enable the use of qgraphicsitem_cast with this item.
return UserType+1;
}
private:
QPointF _center;
bool _isResizing;
};
class CustomScene : public QGraphicsScene
{
protected:
void mousePressEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
qDebug() << "Custom scene clicked.";
QGraphicsScene::mousePressEvent(event);
if(!event->isAccepted()) {
if(event->button() == Qt::LeftButton) {
// add a custom item to the scene
QPointF pt = event->scenePos();
CustomItem * item = new CustomItem();
item->setRect(pt.x()-25, pt.y()-25, 50, 50);
item->setFlags(QGraphicsItem::ItemIsSelectable|
QGraphicsItem::ItemIsMovable);
addItem(item);
} else if(event->button() == Qt::RightButton) {
// check whether there is an item under the cursor
QGraphicsItem * itemToRemove = NULL;
foreach(auto item, items(event->scenePos())) {
if(item->type() == QGraphicsItem::UserType+1) {
itemToRemove = item;
break;
}
}
if(itemToRemove) {
// remove the item from the graphicsScene
removeItem(itemToRemove);
}
}
}
}
void mouseMoveEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event)
{
qDebug() << "Custom scene moved.";
QGraphicsScene::mouseMoveEvent(event);
}
void keyPressEvent(QKeyEvent * event) {
if(event->key() == Qt::Key_Backspace) {
// remove all selected items
qDebug() << "selected items" << selectedItems().size();
while(!selectedItems().isEmpty()) {
removeItem(selectedItems().front());
}
} else {
QGraphicsScene::keyPressEvent(event);
}
}
};
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
QApplication a(argc, argv);
CustomItem item;
item.setRect(20, 20, 60, 60);
item.setFlags(QGraphicsItem::ItemIsSelectable|
QGraphicsItem::ItemIsMovable);
CustomScene scene;
scene.setSceneRect(0, 0, 500, 500);
scene.addItem(&item);
QGraphicsView view;
view.setScene(&scene);
view.show();
return a.exec();
}
Hope it helps too!

Answer 3

I had a similar problem with a view not accepting mouse clicks. The problem was that I needed to enable the view ( ui->view->setEnabled(true) ).