[Interest] Best way to reuse forms(or ui design) in a project

[Bo Thorsen]

Hi Lijo,

I would use one of two different approaches:

The first is to add a QWidget as header and footer on all your forms. 
Then you promote the header widget to your header class and the footer 
to your footer class. You can set the extra properties by using dynamic 
properties.

This way has the advantage that you don't have to do anything to make it 
work. Whenever someone checks out the source code of your project, they 
can just build it.

The other approach is to create a designer plugin for your total widget. 
With such a plugin, you can create any amount of properties for your 
header and footers, and you can see how it looks inside designer.

If you choose this one, you have to build the designer plugin in release 
mode *always*, because designer won't load a debug build. (Unless your 
designer is built with debug, then your plugin must be debug.) You 
should create a container plugin for this class.

Choosing between those two is a matter of what kind of maintenance you 
will do on the code over the years and who will do it. While it's much 
more annoying to keep designer plugins, it makes the forms much easier 
to work with. It creates build issues instead of designer issues.

OTOH, doing the widget promotions means the one working on the designer 
files will have to know what they are doing. If you're in a small team, 
this might be okay. But if the project has a lot of different people, 
this is bound to fail.

Bo.

Den 11-06-2012 09:12, Lijo Antony skrev:
> I am creating 10 different forms. All of them have a common header and
> footer. Header will have the same background image but different titles
> for different forms. Footer is also similar in concept. I would like to
> make the header and footer design only once and reuse them in all the
> forms. I should be able to set some properties like title from
> individual forms(or the associated implementation class). And if I make
> some design changes(like an extra label) later in header, it should be
> reflected on individual forms.
> Also I would like to do all the ui design using QtCreator.
>
>   From my understanding so far, I can think of following possible solutions.
>
> 1. Inherit from a class implementing the common form design. – I will
> not be able to use QtCreator for designing child forms.
>
> 2. Create a template with header&  footer and use the template for
> creating forms. – Any later change in header design will not be
> reflected on the forms
>
> 3. Create custom widgets for header and footer. Integrate with QtCreator
> and use in individual forms. – Relatively complex and some extra overhead.
>
> Since I am new to Qt, I am not sure which is the best way to go ahead or
> there are other options(Qt way!) available. Would any one help me on
> this? Any help would be appreciated.

Bo Thorsen,
Fionia Software.

-- 

Expert Qt and C++ developer for hire
Contact me if you need expert Qt help
http://www.fioniasoftware.dk