Using QtPropertyBrowser as advanced configuration editor - user-interface

Question

Has anyone used QtPropertyBrowser as an advanced configuration editor? All I see a GUI examples, to edit properties of GUI elements. But how would I start if I wanted to edit something more abstract, like application configuration.
Here's an example:
I'm creating an application which has a multipage configuration dialog. Some settings are about the printer, some are about a database, some are generic application settings, some are about template filenames and/or templates. But before designing all those detailed config pages in the editor, I'd like to have an "advanced" or "expert" tab in the dialog which lists all imaginable configuration options. Later in the design process I would collect more and more options, decide which are the "easy" options to put into some more user-friendly configuration pages. And googling around I came accross QtPropertyBrowser which seems to be the right tool. But I'm not sure how to start? I'm pretty sure that, instead of GUI objects, I need some sort of abstract configuration objects (one or more). But I don't know where or how to start with that. Currently all my ideas look way to complicated.
Any suggestions or pointers to hints?

Answer 1

You might want to take a look at the runtime type information available through QMetaObject class. Your data objects should be QObject's descendants and have a QOBJECT macro declared. Also you would need a simple routine which would iterate through data objects properties and create and set up corresponding editor's properties. Meta object is also providing an interface for resetting values and methods invocation. More information on the Qt property system is here: The Property System. Below is a small example on how you could do this:
Property browser and managers declaration and initialization:
QtTreePropertyBrowser *_browser;
QtIntPropertyManager *_intManager;
QtDoublePropertyManager *_doubleManager;
QtStringPropertyManager *_stringManager;
_intManager = new QtIntPropertyManager();
_doubleManager = new QtDoublePropertyManager();
_stringManager = new QtStringPropertyManager();
_browser = new QtTreePropertyBrowser(ui->centralWidget);
load properties names and values:
void loadProperties(QObject *object)
{
_browser->clear();
if (object)
{
const QMetaObject *meta = object->metaObject();
qDebug() << "class : " << meta->className();
for (int i=0; i<meta->propertyCount(); i++)
{
QMetaProperty metaProperty = meta->property(i);
QVariant value = metaProperty.read(object);
QtProperty *property = NULL;
qDebug() << "property : " << metaProperty.name() << " : " << value.toInt();
if (metaProperty.type() == QVariant::Int)
{
property = _intManager->addProperty(metaProperty.name());
_intManager->setValue(property, value.toInt());
}
else if (metaProperty.type() == QVariant::Double)
{
property = _doubleManager->addProperty(metaProperty.name());
_doubleManager->setValue(property, value.toDouble());
}
else if (metaProperty.type() == QVariant::String)
{
property = _stringManager->addProperty(metaProperty.name());
_stringManager->setValue(property, value.toString());
}
if (property)
_browser->addProperty(property);
}
}
}

Answer 2

In the samples folder of QtPropertyBrowser comes a demo (object_controller) that I think is exactly what you want. Although the example shows the properties of a class QWidget ObjectController receives as referenced in function setObject (QObject * object); a QObject. Just keep in mind that all you want to inspect must inherit QObject, directly or indirectly, that is the meta-object containing information about the class. You read about the properties in Qt.