Hands-On GUI Programming with C++ and Qt5

Implementing chat features

Before we start writing any code, we must first enable the networking module by opening our project file (.pro) and add the network keyword there:

QT += core gui network 

Next, open up mainwindow.h and add the following headers and variables:

#ifndef MAINWINDOW_H 
#define MAINWINDOW_H 
 
#include <QMainWindow> 
#include <QDebug> 
#include <QTcpSocket> 
 
private: 
   Ui::MainWindow *ui; 
   bool connectedToHost; 
   QTcpSocket* socket; 

We set the connectedToHost variable to false by default in mainwindow.cpp:

MainWindow::MainWindow(QWidget *parent) : 
   QMainWindow(parent), 
   ui(new Ui::MainWindow) 
{ 
   ui->setupUi(this); 
   connectedToHost = false; 
} 

Once this is done, the first feature we need to implement is the server connection. Open up ...