[Qt-creator] Keeping UI strings consistent

[Kyle Evans]

So I've been working on a project that helps track prescriptions and
inventory.  Some data (IE: the name of a medication) is displayed in
several locations throughout the app.  The problem arises when I need
to make a tooltip or a QLabel that describes what information is being
displayed.  If I change a tooltip or QLabel in one .ui file, then I
have to manually go and change every QLabel and tooltip so that the
app has consistent strings.

For example I have some widgets that appear like so:
"Medication name: <medication_name_is_inserted_here>"

In another place in the application I have some QTableWidgets that
display results from a SQL query.  The column headings would appear
like so:
"...... | Medication name | ......"

My interest is keeping the strings "Medication name" identical if for
example I changed one to simply "Medication".  I currently have the
following solutions in mind for achieving this:

1) When using the UI designer, simply put placeholder strings which
are then replaced by global strings in C++.
  - Allows changing a string in one location and have it take effect
everywhere in the app.
  - Adds a ton of C++ code.  A single widget with 10 strings can
easily add up to 40 lines of code.
  - Partially removes the advantages of using the UI designer.

2) Using QtTrId().
  - Requires that I do solution 1 with slight modifications to use the
translation system.
  - Doesn't work with strings defined in the ui designer.

3) Just keep track and stop being a baby.  Keep a list of every
location that a string appears.  When one is changed, I look up where
else I need to update and manually keep everything consistent.
  - Doesn't clutter up C++ files with hundreds of string assignments.
  - Makes changing UI strings a real pain.
  - No easy way to verify that I didn't forget to update a string someplace.

I'm currently using solution 1, since I wanted to get the application
ready and don't know anything about Qt translation infrastructure.  It
adds a lot of simple string assignment code in my classes while making
the UI designer contain a bunch of placeholder text.

-- 
-- Kyle Evans