Qt: update pixmap grid layout with 2d array values - qt

I am undertaking a game using a combination of c++ in visual studios 2010 and Qt 4.7 (both windows). The game is a clone of battleship and is console input based. I have created my gui how I want it to look, and on the Qt side in Qt designer, my gui consists of a grid layout 10x10, using labels to hold pixmaps of game cells:
I have painstakingly named each label to represent its position in the 2d array (ie. fleet map => F_00 => F[0,0] => F[i],[j]). I can manually choose what pixmap I would like to display using the properties editor, but I would like something dynamic.
I use an update mapboard class to redraw the game board after a player fires, which keeps storing over a char array. I would like to update my pixmaps for each, using a generic getupdatearray type function. As we traverse the array it will update the pixmap currently associated with individual labels to match their cousins from the array. (say F[5][6] = 'X' for hit, then when the loops got to that position in the array it would update the grid of pixmaps at F_56 to equal hit.png, replacing the empty.png.
I have an idea how to make the loop that would accomplish this, but unsure how i would go about getting the pixmap for each label to be more along the lines of a runtime feature versus the now compile time (static) feature. I have read about QPainter and another Qt class that deals with images, but still having a hard go at it.
Question to any of you, how do I update these pixmaps based on a 2d array?
loop structure - i can figure out
condition statements - i can figure out
qt specific syntax dealing with labels- newbie so no idea atm.
Here's some pseudocode of the kind of thing I am trying to do with map.h:
#include <QtCore>
#include <QtGui>
// WARNING: PSEUDOCODE, DOES NOT COMPILE
// AT A LOSS ON HOW TO SELECT THE CORRECT LABEL
// MAYBE A CHILD CLASS FOR THAT?
class map {
public:
char updateboard(char mapname, char b[][10]){
for(int i=0;i<10;i++){
for(int j=0;j<10;j++){
char C = b[i][j];
if (C == 'M'){//miss
Qlabel mapname_[i][j](<img src='images/missspace.png'/>);
mapname_[i][j].show();
}
else if(C == 'X'){//hit
Qlabel mapname_[i][j](<img src='images/hitspace.png'/>);
mapname_[i][j].show();
}
else if(C == ' '){//undiscovered space
Qlabel mapname_[i][j](<img src='image/emptyspace.png'/>);
mapname_[i][j].show();
}
}
}
}
};
Then in my mainwindow.cpp, I include map.h and say:
// calls class function update board
// takes updated array values and replaces old pixmap with new
map.updateboard(T,b[][10]); // target map update
map.updateboard(F,v[][10]); // fleet map update
Thanks in Advance
UPDATE:
I've gotten to the point where I can swap pixmaps with buttons presses, but I would like to create something more dynamic. I wanted to use a Qstring in which I place the name of the label I want to change using by appending x y values using:
TR_position.append(QString::number(xvalue));
When I try to call it using:
ui->TR_position->setPixmap(QPixmap(":/images/missspace.png"));
...it obviously doesnt work. Is there a way to type case it, or use the contents of the string as the Qlabel name?

You manually entered and named 200 label widgets? Let no one call you lazy. :)
Per your update, you now know how to use QLabel::setPixmap(). What you think you need is getting a QLabel pointer from a name, which would be a combination of two things:
QWidget::findChild to get a QWidget* from a QString
qobject_cast to get a QLabel* from a QWidget
If you go down this path, what you'd wind up with is something like:
QWidget* cellWidget = ui->findChild(TR_position);
QLabel* cellLabel = qobject_cast<QLabel*>(cellWidget);
cellLabel->setPixmap(QPixmap(":/images/missspace.png"));
But BEWARE! There are many things wrong with this approach.
It's brittle: What if there doesn't happen to be any widget with that name (mysterious crash)? Or even worse, what if there are multiple widgets with that name and this code marches along blissfully ignorant of that odd condition that is likely a bug?
It's poor OOP: While there are some decent cases to use dynamic casting (or "downcasting"), it usually indicates a flaw in a design. You know that all QLabels are QWidgets, but not all QWidgets are QLabels...so that qobject_cast call might return NULL. It's just one more point of failure. Sometimes you can't avoid this, but really there is no reason your program needs to be structured in such a way.
It's terribly slow: Searching for a widget by its name is essentially a naive recursive search. If you've set aside a separate widget frame for each grid and only search that, Qt will have to do 100 string compares to find the last element (so 50 in the average case). Imagine clearing the grid with a loop...now you're talking about 100*50 string compares!
All these things are avoidable. Just as it's possible to use loops to set the images on the controls by name, it's possible to use loops to create the widgets in the first place. You basically would leave the area for the game board blank in the design tool, and then dynamically create the controls with code...attach them to the layout with code...and save pointers to them in 2D array. (You wouldn't access them by label name at that point, you'd index them just as you are indexing your board.)
You could create your own class derived from QLabel (such as a GameCell class) which contained the information for your board cell and methods related to it. Then you wouldn't need an array of label widgets in parallel to an array representing your board. You'd simply have one array of objects that took care of both aspects of the implementation.
UPDATE: Since you asked in the comments for specifics, here's a GameCell class:
class GameCell : public QLabel
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
enum State { Undiscovered, Hit, Miss };
GameCell (QWidget *parent = 0) : QLabel (parent),
currentState (Undiscovered)
{
syncBitmap();
}
State getState() const { return currentState; }
void setState(State newState) {
if (currentState != newState) {
currentState = newState;
syncBitmap();
}
}
private:
void syncBitmap() { // you'd use setPixmap instead of setText
switch (currentState) {
case Undiscovered: setText("U"); break;
case Hit: setText("H"); break;
case Miss: setText("M"); break;
}
}
State currentState;
};
This does double duty by behaving like a QWidget as well as maintaining a piece of internal state. Then a GameMap widget can use a QGridLayout of these GameCells:
class GameMap : public QWidget {
Q_OBJECT
public:
static const int Rows = 10;
static const int Columns = 10;
GameMap (QWidget* parent = 0) :
QWidget (parent)
{
layout = new QGridLayout (this);
for (int column = 0; column < Columns; column++) {
for (int row = 0; row < Rows; row++) {
GameCell* cell = new GameCell (this);
cells[column][row] = cell;
layout->addWidget(cell, row, column);
}
}
}
private:
GameCell* cells[Columns][Rows];
QGridLayout* layout;
};
If you wanted to, you could just leave spaces in your layout in the designer you wanted to fill in with the GameMap widget. Or you can push on and do the whole thing programmatically. For the sake of simplicity I'll just put two boards next to each other with a vertical separator on the surface of a dialog:
class Game : public QDialog
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
Game (QWidget *parent = 0)
: QDialog(parent)
{
targetMap = new GameMap (this);
fleetMap = new GameMap (this);
verticalSeparator = new QFrame (this);
verticalSeparator->setFrameShape(QFrame::VLine);
verticalSeparator->setFrameShadow(QFrame::Sunken);
layout = new QHBoxLayout (this);
layout->addWidget(targetMap);
layout->addWidget(verticalSeparator);
layout->addWidget(fleetMap);
setLayout(layout);
setWindowTitle(tr("Battleship"));
}
private:
GameMap* targetMap;
QFrame* verticalSeparator;
GameMap* fleetMap;
QHBoxLayout* layout;
};
I'm not going to write a whole game here or make it look fancy. That's just the gist, showing how to get 200 labels up in a programmatic fashion:
With my code, getting a GameCell from an (x,y) coordinate doesn't require an average of 50 string compares. Due to the formalized and predictable nature of 2D arrays, indexing into cells[x][y] only requires a single multiply operation and a single addition operation. There's no downcasting, and you can simply write:
cells[x][y].setState(GameCell::Miss);
ADDENDUM: Creating a QWidget for each grid cell isn't necessarily the way to go in the first place. Some might consider that "heavyweight". If your game were being played out on a large virtual space of tiles then it could be much too slow. You might find it useful to look into QGraphicsGridLayout, which could be a more appropriate approach in the long run:
http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtwidgets-graphicsview-basicgraphicslayouts-example.html
Using QWidgets won't be much of an issue with a 10x10 grid, however, so if you want to just stick with that then you can. If you're going to do it that way, then at least you shouldn't be placing them all by hand!

Related

How to run animation with blocked UI thread in Qt Widgets app?

In QML you can use Animator type to "animate on the scene graph's rendering thread even when the UI thread is blocked."
How can I achieve the same thing for Qt Widgets?
Basically, I want something like:
1) start loading screen / splash-screen
2) start GUI-blocking operation
3) stop loading screen / splash-screen
It is not possible to move the ui-blocking operation to a separate thread (Widgets are being created). I cannot modify this part.
I tried QQuickWidget and QQuickView containing the splash-screen scene with an Animator inside but it didn't work - they got blocked as well.
EDIT: In the separate thread I read the file containing the UI description. Then I recursively create hundreds of Widgets (including QQuickWidgets, QLabels for images, Web views etc.).
Point of the question was to see if there is a "workaround" for that (e.g. displaying the aforementioned QML scene in some separate window with an own event loop). Unfortunately at this point not much more can be done about the overall design of the above.
Probably the widgets you're creating do too much work. You have to specify exactly how many widgets you're creating, and how. Show some example code. In general, the GUI thread is for cooperative multitasking - if you have something that "blocks", break it down into tiny chunks. For example, suppose that you're processing some XML or json file to build the UI. You could have that task do it one widget at a time, and be invoked each time the event loop is about to block (i.e. use a zero-duration "timer" and invert control).
You should also do the maximum possible amount of work outside of the gui thread. I.e. the UI description should be read and converted to an efficient representation that encapsulates the work to be done in the main thread. This conversion has to be done asynchronously.
The simplest way to accomplish that is to encapsulate each widget's creation in a lambda that refers to some context object. Such a lambda would have the signature [...](BatchContext &ctx). The vector of those lambdas would be kept by the CreationContext object as well:
class BatchContext : public QObject {
Q_OBJECT
public:
using Op = std::function<void(CreationContext &)>;
using QObject::QObject;
// useful for Op to keep track of where things go
void push(QWidget *w) { m_stack.push_back(w); }
QWidget *pop() { return m_stack.isEmpty() ? nullptr : m_stack.takeLast(); }
QWidget *top() const { return m_stack.isEmpty() ? nullptr : m_stack.last(); }
int stackSize() const { return m_stack.size(); }
bool stackEmpty() const { return m_stack.isEmpty(); }
Q_SLOT void startExec() {
if (m_execIndex < ops.size())
m_execTimer.start(0, this);
}
template <typename F>
void addOp(F &&op) { m_ops.push_back(std::forward<F>(op)); }
...
private:
QVector<Op> m_ops;
QVector<QWidget *> m_stack;
QBasicTimer m_execTimer;
int m_execIndex = 0;
void timerEvent(QTimerEvent *ev) override {
if (ev->timerId() == m_execTimer.timerId())
if (!exec())
m_execTimer.stop();
}
/// Does a unit of work, returns true if more work is available
bool exec() {
if (m_execIndex < m_ops.size())
m_ops.at(m_execIndex++)(*this);
return m_execIndex < ops.size();
}
};
After the context is created asynchronously, it can be passed to the main thread where you can then invoke startExec() and the widgets will be created one-at-a-time. The stack is but an example of how you might implement one aspect of widget creation process - the tracking of what widget is the "current parent".

Is it possible to use one QFrame several times?

I am using a QWidget in which I would like to put some separator lines.
As separator lines I am using this
QFrame *seperatorLine = new QFrame(_toolBar);
seperatorLine->setFrameStyle(QFrame::Sunken | QFrame::VLine);
I need several separator lines and I was curious whether I need to create a new QFrame every time or whether there is a way to reuse one (or use a copy-constructor).
At the moment the line is only at the last position I added it to the QWidget.
QObject and thus QWidget derived class cannot access a copy constructor.
Instead of that, you can encapuslate your QFrame property in a little factory method:
QFrame* createSeparator(QWidget* parent=0) {
QFrame *separatorLine = new QFrame(parent);
separatorLine->setFrameStyle(QFrame::Sunken | QFrame::VLine);
return separatorLine;
}
I prefer this method over subclassing QFrame to tweak several properties of a QFrame instance
A fancy way to "clone" a QObject would be to create a new object and assign all declared properties. Of course it is only useful if you want to transfer values:
CustomObject* CustomObject::clone() {
int count = metaObject()->propertyCount();
CustomObject* clone = new CustomObject(this->parent());
for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
const char* prop = metaObject()->property(i).name();
clone->setProperty(prop, property(prop));
}
return clone;
}

How to access the QListWidget or QListWidgetItem from a QAbstractItemDelegate

Is this even possible in Qt? I have a QListWidget setup with a delegate for specific painting, and I'm attempting to have the delegate paint differently based on variables in my QListWidget's parent. I figure I can rig something up as long as I have a pointer to either, but I need to somehow get them while in the delegate's paint().
I've tried the "hack" to store a pointer in a QVariant, but it doesn't seem to be working, and I'd rather not take this approach. If I could get to the pointer to item the delegate represents, and just call item->listWidget(), this would be perfect, but it doesn't seem possible while inside the delegate.
Is there any workaround to accomplish this?
Also, just because.. sample of trying to get the void* trick to work - if this is the only way to do this, perhaps someone may see what I have wrong in it.
//Parent of QListWidget
....
QListWidgetItem *item = new QListWidgetItem();
....
QVariant v = qVariantFromValue((void *) pStitchSymbolCustom);
item->setData(Qt::UserRole + 6, v);
....
//Implemented QAbstractItemDelegate
....
MyClass* p_pointer =
(MyClass*)(index.data(Qt::UserRole + 6).value<void *>());
I'm not sure, if i understood your question correctly, but if you want to access the QListWidget wich contains your delegate, then i think, that the easiest way is to set the parent of the delegate as the listwidget, and then get the listwidget at any point of the delegate:
QAbstractItemDelegate * delegate = new MyItemDelegate(myListWidget);
myListWidget.setItemDelegate(delegate);
and then in the delegate code:
QListWidget * listWidget = qobject_cast<QListWidget*>(parent());
//You can do whatever you want your list here
If your object tree is deep, and you want the code to be generic and not care about where the desired parent is, you should ascend the tree automatically:
QListWidget * listWidget = 0;
QObject * object = parent();
while (object && ! listWidget) {
// qobject_cast will succeed once the parent of the correct type is reached
listWidget = qobject_cast<QListWidget*>(object);
object = object->parent();
}

How to set filter option in QTableWidget

In my application I have QtableWidget displaying multiple rows , line edit to enter string and push button, Requirement says upon clicking on push button Same QTableWidget should show only those rows which are having string entered into line edit.
I thought of using QSortFilterProxy Model but QTableWidget is having setModel(...)method private so I am unable to use QSortFilterProxy Model in this case. Please let me know how to implement Filter option in QTable Widget
Using a sort/filter proxy is probably overkill for this anyway.
It's a matter of iterating through all of your QTableWidgetItem objects, determining if their text matches the filter and calling QTableView::setRowHidden() as needed.
For example:
QString filter = textEdit->text();
for( int i = 0; i < table->rowCount(); ++i )
{
bool match = false;
for( int j = 0; j < table->columnCount(); ++j )
{
QTableWidgetItem *item = table->item( i, j );
if( item->text().contains(filter) )
{
match = true;
break;
}
}
table->setRowHidden( i, !match );
}
I HIGHLY recommend going about this in the following way! This is how it is meant to be done in Qt.
Look at the tutorial on Qt Model/View Programming. The problem is that QTableWidget is a convenience class that hides the Model/View stuff for you. In your case, you can't (or shouldn't) ignore the Model/View structure Qt provides.
What you will need to do:
Use a QTableView instead of a QTableWidget.
Subclass QAbstractItemModel and implement data() (for reading), and all the other functions you need from the documentation. This is the trickiest part, but refer to the above link for a walkthrough of how to do this.
Create a QSortFilterProxyModel and setModel() of the QTableView to it.
setSourceModel() of your QSortFilterProxyModel to your subclassed model.
Set the string you want to filter on using setFilterFixedString() or setFilterRegExp() in your QSortFilterProxyModel
Let me know if this helps. This is far more professional, and in the long run, elegant, than iterating through all the elements in your table.

Connecting multiple signals to a single slot in Qt

I'm trying to keep track of the textChanged() signal on for handful of QTextEdits. I want to do the same thing regardless of the text edit emitting the signal: uncheck its associated checkbox in a QListWidget if it becomes empty and leave it checked otherwise. The function I have so for is as follows:
void MainWindow::changed()
{
QString tempStr = ui->hNMRedit->toPlainText();
if(tempStr != "")
{
ui->checkList->item(0)->setCheckState(Qt::Checked);
}
else
{
ui->checkList->item(0)->setCheckState(Qt::Unchecked);
}
}
With the current approach, I would have to make a function like this for every QTextEdit; each function containing virtually identical code. If I stored each of the text edits in an array (so I could find their associated index in the QListWidget), would it be possible for me to have a slot like this?
void MainWindow::changed(QWidget *sender) // for whichever text edit emits the
// textChanged() signal
{
QString tempStr = sender->toPlainText();
if(tempStr != "")
{
// I would potentially use some sort of indexOf(sender) function on the array I
// mentioned earlier here... a little new to Qt, sorry
ui->checkList->item(array.indexOf(sender))->setCheckState(Qt::Checked);
}
else
{
// same as above...
ui->checkList->item(array.indexOf(sender))->setCheckState(Qt::Unchecked);
}
}
Is this possible or should I just create a separate slot for every text edit?
Please let me know if any further clarification is needed!
Lastly, I feel like the only meaningful difference between QLineEdits and QTextEdits is the default size. In favor of keeping things consistent, should I just use one of these objects throughout my UI?
Thanks!!!
I think you are missing the point of slots and signals. How are you creating the connections?
Are you trying to check a box when any of the text boxes change? If so use a QSignalMapper to map the textChanged() signals to send a value of true and connect that to the QCheckBox setChecked(bool) slot.
If that is too complicated subclass QCheckBox and create a set of functions checkBox() uncheckBox() so you can toggle states without a variable. Then connect the QTextEdit textChanged() to your subclass checkBox()
If this is not what you are looking for, at least subclass QTextEditto take in a QCheckBox that it can change when the text changes instead of duplicating code for every QTextEdit
All you need is a hash of QAbstractButton*, keyed by QTextEdit*. In the slot, you look up the sender() in the hash, if found you've got the button you need. This is precisely what is done by the QSignalMapper: you can map from a sender QWidget* to your button QWidget*. Use qobject_cast to cast to QAbstractButton*.

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