Archived:Adding Options menu, panes, and icon to a Qt for Symbian application
Qt Quick should be used for all UI development on mobile devices. The approach described in this article (using C++ for the Qt app UI) is deprecated.
Article Metadata
Tested with
Compatibility
S60 5th Edition
Symbian ^3
Article
Contents |
Overview
Standard Qt applications can be compiled for Symbian devices. This code snippet demonstrates how to modify the source code so that when building for the Symbian platform, the application has the following Symbian style elements:
- Status pane
- Control pane
- Application menu (Options & Back)
- Application icon
Note: In order to use this code, you need to have Qt installed on your platform.
Preconditions
None
Showing status pane and control pane
Call QMainWindow::showMaximized() to display the application status and control panes. The application already has these panes, all you need to do is arrange the space for them to appear.
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
QApplication app(argc, argv);
MyMainWindow *mainwindow = new MyMainWindow;
mainwindow->showMaximized();
ret = app.exec();
delete mainwindow;
return ret;
}
Defining application icon
This section explains how to set up the SVG icon for the application. Add the following Symbian C++ section to the Qt project file (.pro). The example icon.svg is in the same folder as the project file.
symbian {
ICON = icon.svg
}
Menus can be created into QMainWindow, QDialog or into QWidget in Symbian. QMainWindow has predefined Symbian CBA buttons (Options/Exit), but for QDialog or QWidget you need to define them.
When Qt menus and actions are populated into a menu bar, they appear in the Options menu and can be accessed using the left softkey. Note that in Qt, you can add menu actions directly to the menu bar because a Symbian Options menu item has already been created. On other Qt platforms, you first have to create the Options menu item and after that add the menu actions to the menu.
Defining menus in QMainWindow
this->menuBar()->addAction("Menu item", this, SLOT(someSlot()));
The someSlot() slot is called when an item is selected from the Options menu.
Defining menus in QDialog or QWidget
Remember that Symbian CBA buttons have be to defined when using QDialog or QWidget.
// Instance variable for header
QMenu* m_menu;
// Create menu
m_menu = new QMenu(this);
m_menu->addAction("Menu item", this, SLOT(someSlot()));
// Create Options CBA
QAction *optionsAction = new QAction("Options", this);
// Set defined menu into Options button
optionsAction->setMenu(m_menu);
optionsAction->setSoftKeyRole(QAction::PositiveSoftKey);
addAction(optionsAction);
// Create Exit CBA
QAction *backSoftKeyAction = new QAction(QString("Exit"), this);
backSoftKeyAction->setSoftKeyRole(QAction::NegativeSoftKey);
// Exit button closes the application
QObject::connect(backSoftKeyAction, SIGNAL(triggered()),
QApplication::instance(), SLOT(quit()));
addAction(backSoftKeyAction);
// or Create Back CBA
// Back button closes the QDialog
// QAction *backSoftKeyAction = new QAction(QString("Back"), this);
// backSoftKeyAction->setSoftKeyRole(QAction::NegativeSoftKey);
// QObject::connect(backSoftKeyAction, SIGNAL(triggered()),
// this, SLOT(close()));
// addAction(backSoftKeyAction);
Postconditions
The Qt application contains an application icon, Status and Control panes, and an Options menu.
Why not creating the mainwindow on the stack so there is no need to new and delete it and you could just return app.exec(), e.g.
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { QApplication app(argc, argv); MyMainWindow mainwindow; app.setActiveWindow(mainwindow); // ??? mainwindow.showMaximized(); return app.exec(); }--axeljaeger 13:22, 16 June 2009 (EEST)