C++ GUI Programming with Qt 3

Chapter 6. Layout Management

• Basic Layouts

• Splitters

• Widget Stacks

• Scroll Views

• Dock Windows

• Multiple Document Interface

Every widget that is placed on a form must be given an appropriate size and position. Some large widgets may also need scroll bars to give the user access to all their contents. In this chapter, we will review the different ways of laying out widgets on a form, and also see how to implement dockable windows and MDI windows.

Basic Layouts

Qt provides three basic ways of managing the layout of child widgets on a form: absolute positioning, manual layout, and layout managers. We will look at each of these approaches in turn, using the Find File dialog shown in Figure 6.1 as our example.

Figure 6.1. The Find File dialog

Absolute positioning ...