QGraphicsItem unselect redraw problem - qt

Very simple Qt GUI application:
On the scene I have multiple circles implemented as QGraphicsItem
boundingRect returns square around
this circle.
Method 'shape' is not overridden.
The problem appears when in paint() method I've added:
if (isSelected()) {
painter->drawRect(re);
}
Selection is drawn well, but unselection doesn't cause redrawing. At log level I can see that item really lost selection flag.
Calling update() from itemChange is useless also.
Thank you in advance for any suggestion.

After 10 days I returned back to this problem and discovered that my QGraphicsItem constructed with
setCacheMode(DeviceCoordinateCache);
OMG! Stupid mistake, when this line was removed (by default QGraphicsItem::NoCache used) selection is redrawn well.

You can also try to change the default QGraphicsView::MinimalViewportUpdate to FullViewportUpdate with setViewportUpdateMode(QGraphicsView::FullViewportUpdate);
Or you can call scene()->update(); from the item to schedule a repaint.
One of them was required at least when I kept changing the QGraphicsItem::ItemHasNoContents flag on an item.

Related

Qt: change QGraphicsItem receiver during mouse move

I am currently trying to implement a Bezier pen tool. The course of events looks like this:
click on point (QGraphicsItem), start moving while clicked
in QGraphicsScene mouseMoveEvent, prevent moves of point (with a boolean flag) until when distance from point.pos() to event.scenePos() reaches a threshold. When this happens unselect and mouseRelease point, add a node (QGraphicsItem) – select it and give it mousePress state (plus unset the boolean flag)
the user can move node after that, then release mouse.
(The node is a child item of the point.)
I tried to do this inside the scene’s mouseMoveEvent (I have a conditional branch to know when to do this):
point.setSelected(False)
point.ungrabMouse()
node.setPos(event.scenePos()-point.pos()) # positioning relative to point since it’s a childItem()
node.grabMouse()
event.accept()
But after doing this it occured that the node was only getting mouseMoveEvent’s after I release the mouse… (I print them in the console, the node itself did not move.)
So I figured, maybe the scene needs to eat a mouseReleaseEvent before sort of "releasing focus". I found an article that is tangent to the subject here.
So then instead of using ungrabMouse()/grabMouse(), I tried this:
mouseRelease = QEvent(QEvent.MouseButtonRelease)
self.sendEvent(point, mouseRelease)
node.setPos(event.scenePos()-point.pos()) # positioning relative to point since it’s a childItem()
mousePress = QEvent(QEvent.MouseButtonPress)
self.sendEvent(node, mousePress)
Now when I reach the distance threshold, I can see that only point gets selected (good) however as I move further both point and node are selected and moving… I would expect that since I have unselected and released (parent) point, it would not keep moving.
The article I linked to does do something different but it says "It turns out, we have to simulate a mouse release event to clear Qt’s internal state." which might be relevant to the current situation however I do not know what extra steps might need to be taken in order to “clear Qt’s internal state”… so I’m hoping a QGraphics aficionado can weigh in and help me out figuring this.
Thanks for having a look here.
A combination of sending mouse events and grabbing mouse manually works… has to be ungrabbed manually on mouseRelease though.

Artifacts showing when modifying a custom QGraphicsItem

I'm currently developping a small vector drawing program in wich you can create lines and modify them after creation (those lines are based on a custom QGraphicsItem). For instance, the picture below shows what happens when the leftmost (marked yellow) point of the line is dragged to the right of the screen, effectively lengthening the line :
Everything works fine when the point is moved slowly, however, when moved rapidly, some visual artifacts appear :
The piece of code I'm using to call for a repaint is located in the mouseMoveEvent redefined method, which holds the following lines of code :
QRectF br = boundingRect();
x2 = static_cast<int>(event->scenePos().x()-x());
y2 = static_cast<int>(event->scenePos().y()-y());
update(br);
There's apparently no problem with my boundingRect definition, since adding painter->drawRect(boundingRect()) in the paint method shows this :
And there are also no problem when the line is simply moved (flag QGraphicsItem::ItemIsMovable is set), even rapidly.
Does anyone know what is happening here ? My guess is that update is not being called immediately hence mouseMoveEvent can be called multiple times before a repaint occurs, maybe canceling previous calls ? I'm not sure.
Of course the easy fix is to set the viewport mode of the QGraphicsView object holding the line to QGraphicsView::FullViewportUpdate), but that is ugly (and slow).
Without seeing the full function for how you're updating the line, I would guess that you've omitted to call prepareGeometryChange() before updating the bounding rect of the items.
As the docs state: -
Prepares the item for a geometry change. Call this function before changing the bounding rect of an item to keep QGraphicsScene's index up to date.

QGraphicsScene::clear() clearing scene but not the view

I use a custom class (Configuration) derived from QGraphicsItem and I add its objects to a QGraphicsScene, which is then displayed in a QGraphicsView. Usual stuff. What Im doing exactly is drawing a tree, in multiple steps, one level a step, each node beeing my custom QGraphicsItem.
Here a screenshot. The tree happens to be sequential in the simple case.
I first draw the root node. The signal that triggers that is fired after the user entered a string.
void MainWindow::drawRootSlot(ConfigTreeBuilder & builder)//this is a slot
{
c_scene->clear(); //the clear cause headache. i'll expain
Configuration* conf = new Configuration(builder.getNodesX(), builder.getNodesY(),builder.getNodesConfig());
//code
c_scene->addItem(conf);
//code
}
Each subsequent Configuration is draw inside another slot.
void MainWindow::configTreeSlot(ConfigTreeBuilder & builder) //SLOT!!!
{
while(builder.chooseNextNode()) {
Configuration* conf = new Configuration(builder.getNodesX(), builder.getNodesY(), builder.getNodesConfig());
//code, while loop
QGraphicsLineItem *edge = c_scene->addLine(QLineF(*(parentsPoint), conf->getLeftOrigin()));
edge->setZValue(-1); //below the Configuration item
c_scene->addItem(conf);
}
}
All works fine when done for the first time. When I enter a new string, resetting the tree, dark magic happens. What I expected to it do is: call drawRootSlot(), deleting the whole tree (c_scene->clear()), draw a new root node. And, if I put a debugger breakpoint inside drawRootSlot() this is exactly what happens! But when I run it (without breakpoints), what I get is this:
The previous tree got mangled, but not deleted. The scene gets indeed cleared of its items (printed that) but the view does not reflect that. But again, when I put a breakpoint inside drawRootSlot() thhe view and the scene are in sync.
I tried to delete the scene object, and instaciate a new one instead of calling c_scene->clear(), to guarantee it empty. Then the changes are reflected on the view (the first time drawing always works).
So, I have no idea what to deduce from these symptoms. It works as expected with a breakpoint or with a freshh QGraphicsScene object. It does not when just using c_scene->clear(). One couldsay I just messed up the parent-object/child-object relation, but clear() does remove items from the view... I tried calling it right after c_scene->addItem().
What is this sorrcery? One that makes me believe I'm not actually stupid?
EDIT: Whats interesting and may be a hint to the real problem, is that when c_scene->clear() is called, the edges of the tree, which are normal QGraphicsLineItems, are indeed deleted in all cases (breakpoint or not). Something to do with them not beeing custom?
Ok, calling QGraphicsView::viewport().update() after QGraphicsScene::clear() solved my problems.
But does anyone have an explanaition to the behavior described above?
EDIT: Upon doing doing something else I stumbled upon the actual core of the problem: I messed up the boundingRect() of my GraphicItems, so it was below the visble item, touching only its lower edge (which got deleted, as seen on the screenshot). So now no calls to any update() methods are neccesary.
I think when you call this fitInView() for the graphicsview it cleans up the view from any artifacts that remain from a previous scene.
You can clear both scene and Graphics View
scene->clear();
ui->graphicsView->items().clear();
graphicsView = name of your graphics view
This code will delete both scene and graphics view

Qt QGraphicsScene::drawItems subsitute?

For QGraphicsScene::drawItems the reference says:
Reimplement this function to provide custom painting of all items for the scene; gaining complete control over how each item is drawn.
But this function is marked as obsolete.
Is there any new equivalent method?
QGraphicsView::paintEvent() now calls
d->scene->d_func()->drawItems()
which means the method is part of class QGraphicsScenePrivate which you cannot override afaik.
If you need to change the way your items are drawn, first try to think of another way (i.e. a solution which does not require stepping into the drawItems() method). If you can't find any solution like that, your only chance is reactivating the pre-4.6-behaviour by setting
QGraphicsView::setOptimizationFlag( QGraphicsView::IndirectPainting )

Best way to create a long line (or cross line) cursor in Qt GraphicsView

The easy way to create the long cross line cursor (as long as viewport) is create a cross line graphicsItem, when mouse moved, set the item's pos property.
But this way will be very slow when the scene is complex, because it should update the whole viewport to update the cursor's pos.
The another easy way is setCursor(QCursor(..)),use a QPixmap to define the long cross line, this way will very fast , but the cursor will exceed the viewport rect.
Is there another way to show a long cross line cursor fastly?
Thanks very much!
If I understand correctly, you want to draw an horizontal line and a vertical line, crossing at the cursor position, and being as large as the viewport is.
A poosible solution would be to reimplement QGraphicsScene::drawForeground() to draw the two lines with the painter.
The problem is that the scene doesn't know about the mouse position. This means the view will have to track it and inform the scene when the mouse position has changed.
To do that, you'll have to create your own GraphicsScene (inheriting QGraphicsScene) and your own GraphicsView (inheriting QGraphicsView).
On your GraphicsView constructor, you'll have to start mouse tracking. This will make your you receive a mouseMoveEvent each time the mouse moves inside the view :
GraphicsViewTrack::GraphicsViewTrack(QWidget* parent) : QGraphicsView(parent) {
setMouseTracking(true);
}
void GraphicsViewTrack::mouseMoveEvent(QMouseEvent* pEvent) {
QPointF MousePos = this->mapToScene(pEvent->pos());
emit mousePosChanged(MousePos.toPoint());
}
As you can see in the code snippet above, the view is emitting a signal (mousePosChanged) to which the scene will be connected. This signal contains the mouse position, converted to the scene's coordinates.
Now, on the scene side, you have to add a slot which will be called when the mouse position changed, store the new mouse position in a member variable and reimplement QGraphicsScene::drawForeground() :
void GraphicsSceneCross::drawForeground(QPainter* painter, const QRectF& rect) {
QRectF SceneRect = this->sceneRect();
painter->setPen(QPen(Qt::black, 1));
painter->drawLine(SceneRect.left(), m_MousePos.y(), SceneRect.right(), m_MousePos.y());
painter->drawLine(m_MousePos.x(), SceneRect.top(), m_MousePos.x(), SceneRect.bottom());
}
void GraphicsSceneCross::onMouseChanged(QPoint NewMousePos) {
m_MousePos = NewMousePos; // Store the mouse position in a member variable
invalidate(); // Tells the scene it should be redrawn
}
The last thing to do is connect the GraphicsView's signal to the GraphicsScene slot.
I'll let you check if this solution is acceptable performance wise.
Based on Jerome answer and using python I created this code in my QGraphicsScene subclass:
def drawForeground(self, painter, rect):
if self.guidesEnabled:
painter.setClipRect(rect)
painter.setPen(self.guidePen)
painter.drawLine(self.coords.x(), rect.top(), self.coords.x(), rect.bottom())
painter.drawLine(rect.left(), self.coords.y(), rect.right(), self.coords.y())
def mouseMoveEvent(self, event):
self.coords = event.scenePos()
self.invalidate()
It should be straighforward for you to write its appropiate C++ code. Note that I take advantage of the rect argument passed by Qt Api framework and I clip the painter to that
area, since it's the visible area to be drawn.
I also cache the pen object, since I realized in other experiments that creating objects while painting will penalty performace and doing it so you also give the user the chance to set a custom pen in your program options.
I have found a way to do this!
I develops under Windows system, so can use lower GDI api jumping out of Qt's painting system.
The detail is get the HDC of the QGraphicsView's viewPort. Then in the QMouseEvent of QGraphicsView use "MoveToEx" and "LineTo" drawing two lines on the viewport,then I should do is erase the "old" cursor, It's easy to do this using "setROP2(HDC dc,R2_NOT)",then draw the old Cursor stored again.
This method doesn't enter the QPainter system, so the GraphicsItems under the cursor will not be repaint.
To solve the filker problem when the mouse moves fast, I don't use "double buffer". I used QTimer to update the cursor at CPU's idle. The detail is in QMouseEvent ,don't update the cursor at time ,but store the position to a list, When CPU idle, draw the cursor at the list of positions
I wish this will help others who meets the same problem with me.
Thanks Jérôme, who gave me useful tip of QGraphicsScene.

Resources