September 14, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts

Creating a keypress signal from application button

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Hello Qt devs!

As the title refers to, I’m trying to implement an application button to have the same functionality as when I press “arrow key down” on my keyboard.

I need to use signals and slots here right?

I have tried with this:

  1. connect(ui.buttonOne, SIGNAL( clicked() ), QApplication::instance(),
  2.    SLOT( keyPressEvent(Qt::Key_Down) ));

I’m unsure what I need to have as receiver. – Where I currently have “QApplication::instance()”.

But perhaps I’m way off here?

Thank you for your time!

33 replies

September 14, 2011

Vass Vass
Hobby Entomologist
738 posts

1. keyPressEvent isn’t slot.
2. signal with params can’t connected to slot with params.
3. and of course, you can’t set constant param to slot in connect definition.

you need write slot and send event from it
something like:

  1. connect(ui.buttonOne, SIGNAL( clicked() ), QApplication::instance(),
  2.    SLOT( keyDownSlot()));
  3.  
  4. ...
  5.  
  6. void keyDownSlot()
  7. {
  8.      QKeyEvent event(QEvent::KeyPress, Qt::Key_Down, Qt::NoModifier);
  9.      QApplication::sendEvent(mainWindow, &event);
  10. }

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Vasiliy

September 14, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts

Thank you for your reply Vass!

The argument “mainWindow” in your above post line 9, is the receiver – which is the widget to get the event, right?

When I insert my widget it doesn’t work.

Any idea what to do?

September 14, 2011

Vass Vass
Hobby Entomologist
738 posts
maxmotor wrote:
The argument “mainWindow” in your above post line 9, is the receiver – which is the widget to get the event, right?

Right.
What are widget you insert?

 Signature 


Vasiliy

September 14, 2011

Gerolf Gerolf
Area 51 Engineer
3211 posts

Yes and no,

just sending a keyPress event does not do the same as a real key press.
First of all key events are sponataneous events…
second, the release event is missing

You can have a look at QtTest, how they do it. They have possibilities to simulate key events there.

 Signature 

Nokia Certified Qt Specialist.
Programming Is Like Sex: One mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life. (Michael Sinz)

September 14, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts

@Voss
It is a QTableWidget

@Gerolf
I will have a look at QtTest. Thanks.

September 14, 2011

ludde ludde
Lab Rat
325 posts

I think what you really want to do is not simulate the key event, but rather connect your signal to a slot that does the same thing as the key event. QTableWidget might already have such a slot. (Unless you are looking for other side effects than just the functionality provided by the key press.)

Edit: No, there does not seem to be such a slot, but you could create your own slot that uses the QTableView::moveCursor() function.

September 14, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts
ludde wrote:
I think what you really want to do is not simulate the key event, but rather connect your signal to a slot that does the same thing as the key event.

Yes, this is what I want :)

I don’t understand how the moveCursor() function can be used?

Maybe I need to tell you that the software I’m working on will run on a piece of hardware with some hardware buttons and a touch screen. I want the user to be able to press either an assigned hardware button or simply click the GUI button on the screen – the effect should be the same. I hope I’m expressing myself clear enough! :)

Thank you for all the inputs!

September 14, 2011

ludde ludde
Lab Rat
325 posts

Did you look at the documentation of moveCursor()? You simply pass en enum value as the first argument, e.g. QAbstractItemView::MoveDown for moving down. The second argument can just be Qt::NoModifier, unless you want to also simulate the use of shift / control buttons.

Or maybe your problem was that it is a protected method? You need to subclass QTableView and put your slot there to be able to use it.

September 14, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts

I’m sorry. As you might already guessed I’m new to Qt – and I’m not really that experienced in C++ either.

The compiler does indeed complain about it being a protected method.

So I need to subclass QTableView into my class. Something like this?:

[EDIT: Notice the below code is oh so very wrong. Don’t use it :) But I guess you already knew ]

  1. class QTableView : public MyClass
  2. {
  3.      void QTableView::keyDownSlot(){
  4.         ui.tableWidget->moveCursor(QAbstractionItemView::MoveDown, Qt::NoModifier);
  5.      }
  6. };

And then I should be able to use the slot in MyClass? Is it something like this?

I’m trying to make it work but I keep getting errors..

September 14, 2011

ludde ludde
Lab Rat
325 posts

No offence, but it looks like you might need to learn some basic C++ to actually get that to work… :)

Yes, what you need to do is something like the above, but not quite. You need a constructor for your class, and you need to declare your slot as a public slot. And you’ve got the inheritance order the wrong way around. You should be able to find out how to subclass a Qt widget class from some example. I’d say at least 50% of writing a Qt application is about subclassing existing Qt classes, so it’s a good idea to learn how to do that properly.

September 14, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts

Hm your right ludde. From the looks of it I do indeed need to learn some basic C++. My attempt at writing some code failed miserably. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Do I dare to try again? :)

I will try to explain my overall structure. So please bear with me.

I have a Parent_ui class which inherits from QWidget. This Parent_ui holds some basic setup of my windows. This is inherited in all my ui’s in order to setup the same window size etc. It is in all these ui’s I want to implement something to handle a press of a GUI button (Must function the same way as if I use the arrow keys on my keyboard).

Okay, so in order to achieve my goal, I also need to inherit QTableView in my Parent_ui (Multiple inheritance)?

I see that QTableView inherits (not all functions) from QWidget. Does this mean I can just entirely delete QWidget as my parent/base class and use the QTableView instead?

I can’t think anymore tonight. Too tired. Looking forward to your replies.

I am very grateful for your time and patience.

September 15, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts

Could this be a possible structure?

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/99/possibleguiprogramstruc.png

Or would it be possible to subclass both QWidget and QTableView in Parent_ui? I’m having a hard time figuring this out :(

EDIT: Hm – Just tried creating a separate class for holding my slot like my diagram above shows.

  1. void Test_class::keyDownSlot(QTableView widget) {
  2.   widget.moveCursor(QAbstractItemView::MoveDown, Qt::NoModifier);
  3.  
  4. }

I guess I’m still far away from a solution :(

September 15, 2011

ludde ludde
Lab Rat
325 posts

I’m sorry, but that picture does not say much to me… Looks like you are using Qt Designer to design your widgets, which is something I have never done (and hopefully never will do :). So someone else will have to help you with that.

Regarding multiple inheritance, you cannot inherit from two QObject subclasses, so that’s not an option.

I don’t know what you are using your QWidgets for, but maybe what you want to do is something like this:

  1. Create a subclass of QTableView, e.g. MyTableView, which has a couple of new slots moveUp(), moveDown() etc.
  2. Create a subclass of QWidget, MyWidget that has a layout and contains some buttons and an instance of MyTableView.
  3. Connect the clicked() signals of the buttons to the corresponding signals in the MyTableView instance, e.g. in the MyWidget constructor.

Hope this helps.

September 15, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts

Thank you so much ludde!

What you describe is almost what I sketch in my diagram. The only difference I guess is that I had all my UI’s have an instance of my QTableView subclass. Of course it should be MyWidget (In my case Parent_ui) that should have the instance of the QTableView subclass.

I will try this out!

Thank you for your time!

EDIT: Come to think about it, in my case the subclasses of Parent_ui needs the instance of MyTableView. This is because it is here the buttons and QTableView is created.

September 15, 2011

maxmotor maxmotor
Lab Rat
84 posts

I get this error when trying to build:

error: ‘QTableView& QTableView::operator=(const QTableView&)’ is private

The header file of MyTableView looks like this:

  1. #include "qtableview.h"
  2.  
  3. class MyTableView: public QTableView {
  4.  
  5. Q_OBJECT;
  6.  
  7. public:
  8.  MyTableView(QWidget* parent = 0);
  9.  virtual ~MyTableView();
  10. public slots:
  11.  void key_down();
  12.  void key_up();
  13.  
  14. };

Do I need to change something here? Or does it look right?

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