[Qt-creator] R.I.P. for QPlainTextEdit in Qr Creator 17?

[André Hartmann]

Hi Henry,

 > What would the best approach be? (Utils::MacroExpander could probably
 > be good enough for inserting the date but what about the time.)

Beside CurrentDate, there is also a CurrentTime variable in different 
flavors.

Regards,
André

> On 2025-06-19 22:51, apoenitz wrote:
>> Hi.
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 18, 2025 at 06:05:08PM +0200, Henry Skoglund wrote:
>>> Hi, just updated to Qt Creator 17 and it looks good, however when 
>>> rebuilding
>>> my Qt Creator plugin I got stuck for a bit with this failing:
>>>
>>>    auto pe =
>>> qobject_cast<QPlainTextEdit*>(EditorManager::currentEditor()->widget());
>>>
>>> For almost 15 years that statement served me well and it allowed for 
>>> example
>>> setting a fatter cursor at Qt Creator start (useful on 4K screens) but
>>> today, it returns a nullptr :-(
>>>
>>>
>>> Instead, the new incantation for Qt Creator 17 (and onwards?) seems 
>>> to be:
>>>
>>>    auto pe = 
>>> qobject_cast<Utils::PlainTextEdit*>(EditorManager::currentEditor()->widget());
>>>
>>> After that fix, it's smooth sailing (Utils::PlainTextEdit behaves 100%
>>> compatible with QPlainTextEdit).
>>>
>>> But if there was a bit of documentation of this new class in the Utils::
>>> Namespace I would be even more happy!
>> Sorry to hear that this bit you.
>>
>> I guess nobody expected that some plugin out there had a hard dependency
>> on Editor::widget() being in fact a QPlainTextEdit for text editors.
>>
>> The fact that Utils::PlainTextEdit behaves like QPlainTextEdit is not
>> quite an accident, the idea is add a few features and try to upstream
>> it to Qt proper again. For this to happen it has to stay compatible.
>>
>> In case this upstreaming will be  successful there's a good chance that
>> Utils::PlainTextEdit will vanish again. But then there'll hopefully
>> be a more communication.
>>
> Thanks for answering, it's all working fine now with the new 
> Utils::PlainTextEdit.
> 
> Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, i.e. I shouldn't take a hard dependency on 
> the built-in editor being of a certain class.
> 
> Say I were to write a new plugin to Qt Creator having only one command, 
> like F5 in Notepad in Windows: inserting the current date and time where 
> the text cursor is.
> 
> What would the best approach be? (Utils::MacroExpander could probably be 
> good enough for inserting the date but what about the time.)
>