[Qt-interest] any planned improvement to QMessageBox interfaces?

[Ross Bencina]

Hello Alex

There is nothing stopping me doing as you describe (although I don't agree 
with your proposed interface since it makes assumptions about the order of 
the text strings).

But my question remains: is there anything like this planned for Qt4.6 or 
later? It's a standard requirement for message boxes these days and I'd 
prefer not to invent my own way and then have to re-write (again) to the Qt 
way later.

Thanks!

Ross.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Malyushytsky, Alex" <alex at wai.com>
To: "Qt-Interest" <qt-interest at trolltech.com>
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Qt-interest] any planned improvement to QMessageBox 
interfaces?


> First I would like to comment that "Erase the Hard Disk" does not fall in 
> "use-verbs-as-labels" concept.
> It is more like "use-sentences-as-labels", in this case I would prefer 
> yes/no.
>
> Anyway, if you need to be able to specify the labels, what prevents you 
> from writing your static function(s) which do it.
> (It probably not worth to derive your class from QMessageBox just to add 
> static functions, so you might keep them global)
>
>
> Assume you had the following code:
> int ret = QMessageBox::critical( parent, title, text ) ;
>
> Create  static functions, declared as:
>
> QMessageBox::StandardButton criticalMessageBox ( QWidget * parent, const 
> QString & title, const QString & text, QMessageBox::StandardButtons 
> buttons = Ok, QMessageBox::StandardButton defaultButton = NoButton,
> QStringList* buttonLabels = NULL )
>
> Or for convenience you can provide2 functions:
>
> QMessageBox::StandardButton criticalMessageBox ( QWidget * parent, const 
> QString & title, const QString & text, StandardButtons buttons = Ok,
> QStringList* buttonLabels = NULL );
>
>
>
> Replace the text "QMessageBox::critical" on "criticalMessageBox" in all 
> files.
> (Make sure you include header with criticalMessageBox declarations)
>
>
> You should have
> int ret = criticalMessageBox ( parent, title, text ) ;
>
> Now everything should work the same way it was before.
>
> When you ready to replace the text on the buttons, add the code :
> QStringList lst;
> lst << qApp->tr("Erase the Hard Disk")
>    << qApp->tr("Don't erase the Hard Disk");
>
> int ret = criticalMessageBox ( parent, title, text, & lst ) ;
>
> Possible implementation of your static function:
>
> QMessageBox::StandardButton criticalMessageBox ( QWidget * parent, const 
> QString & title, const QString & text, QMessageBox::StandardButtons 
> buttons, QMessageBox::StandardButton defaultButton,
> QStringList* buttonLabels = NULL )
> {
>  QMessageBox::StandardButton ret;
>  if(buttonLabels)
>  {
>    ret = QMessageBox::critical( parent, title, text, buttons, 
> defaultButton);
>  }
>  else
>  {
>
>      QMessageBox messageBox(parent);
>      messageBox->button(QMessageBox::Yes)->setText("Erase the Hard Disk");
>     messageBox->button(QMessageBox::No)->setText("Don't erase the Hard 
> Disk");
>         .... // set title, text, buttons
>
>     ret =  messageBox->exec();
> }
>
> That is it.
>
> Regards,
>  Alex
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: qt-interest-bounces at trolltech.com 
> [mailto:qt-interest-bounces at trolltech.com] On Behalf Of Ross Bencina
> Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:24 PM
> To: Qt-Interest
> Subject: [Qt-interest] any planned improvement to QMessageBox interfaces?
>
> Hi
>
> I'm planning to improve my app by replacing the standard Yes/No/Cancel
> buttons in all my QMessageBox calls with context specific verbs as per
> current user interface guidelines. eg
> http://www.usabilitypost.com/2008/08/30/usability-tip-use-verbs-as-labels-on-buttons/
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511268.aspx#respondMainInstruction
>
> I know I can do this with Qt4.5 by explicitly instantiating a QMessageBox
> and then using something like:
>
> QMessageBox messageBox(...);
> messageBox->button(QMessageBox::Yes)->setText("Erase the Hard Disk");
> messageBox->button(QMessageBox::No)->setText("Don't erase the Hard Disk");
> if( messageBox->exec() == QMessageBox::Yes ){
>    eraseTheHardDisk();
> }
>
> But at the moment I'm using the (very convenient) static functions
> (QMessageBox::question() et al) so its quite a bit of work to rework all 
> my
> code to use non-static message boxes.
>
> Before I decide how to proceed I would like to know if there are plans to
> support customising message box button texts via the the static message 
> box
> functions in Qt 4.6 or in the future?
>
> Perhaps there is a cleaner way to do it, but I'm imagining something like:
>
> if( QMessageBox::question( 0, "MyApp", "Do you want to erase the Hard
> Disk?",
>        QMessageBox::NamedStandardButtonList()
>                << QMessageBox::NamedStandardButton( QMessageBox::Yes,
> "Erase the Hard Disk" )
>                << QMessageBox::NamedStandardButton( QMessageBox::No, 
> "Don't
> erase the Hard Disk" ),
>        /* default= */ QMessageBox::No ) == QMessageBox::Yes ){
>
>    eraseTheHardDisk();
> }
>
> Is this planned or should I rewrite to the first way?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Ross.
>
>
>
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