Qt Signals And Slots Tutorial

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Unlike a console mode application, which is executed in a sequential manner, a GUI based application is event driven. Functions or methods are executed in response to user’s actions like clicking on a button, selecting an item from a collection or a mouse click etc., called events.

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Widgets used to build the GUI interface act as the source of such events. Each PyQt widget, which is derived from QObject class, is designed to emit ‘signal’ in response to one or more events. The signal on its own does not perform any action. Instead, it is ‘connected’ to a ‘slot’. The slot can be any callable Python function.

Using Qt Designer's Signal/Slot Editor

First design a simple form with a LineEdit control and a PushButton.

It is desired that if button is pressed, contents of text box should be erased. The QLineEdit widget has a clear() method for this purpose. Hence, the button’s clicked signal is to be connected to clear() method of the text box.

To start with, choose Edit signals/slots from Edit menu (or press F4). Then highlight the button with mouse and drag the cursor towards the textbox

As the mouse is released, a dialog showing signals of button and methods of slot will be displayed. Select clicked signal and clear() method

The Signal/Slot Editor window at bottom right will show the result −

Save ui and Build and Python code from ui file as shown in the below code −

Generated Python code will have the connection between signal and slot by the following statement −

Run signalslot.py and enter some text in the LineEdit. The text will be cleared if the button is pressed.

Building Signal-slot Connection

Instead of using Designer, you can directly establish signal-slot connection by following syntax −

Suppose if a function is to be called when a button is clicked. Here, the clicked signal is to be connected to a callable function. It can be achieved in any of the following technique −

Example

In the following example, two QPushButton objects (b1 and b2) are added in QDialog window. We want to call functions b1_clicked() and b2_clicked() on clicking b1 and b2 respectively.

When b1 is clicked, the clicked() signal is connected to b1_clicked() function −

When b2 is clicked, the clicked() signal is connected to b2_clicked() function.

The above code produces the following output −

Output

last modified July 16, 2020

In this part of the Qt5 C++ programming tutorial we talk about events and signals.

Events are an important part in any GUI program. All GUI applications are event-driven. An application reacts to different event types which are generated during its life. Events are generated mainly by the user of an application. But they can be generated by other means as well, e.g. Internet connection, window manager, or a timer. In the event model, there are three participants:

• event source
• event object
• event target

The event source is the object whose state changes. It generates Events. The event object (Event) encapsulates the state changes in the event source.The event target is the object that wants to be notified. Event source object delegates the task of handling an event to the event target.

When we call the application's exec() method, the applicationenters the main loop. The main loop fetches events and sends them to the objects. Qt has a unique signal and slot mechanism. This signal and slot mechanism is an extension to the C++ programming language.

Qt Signals And Slots Tutorial Free

Signals and slots are used for communication between objects. A signal is emitted when a particular event occurs. A slot is a normal C++ method;it is called when a signal connected to it is emitted.

Click

The first example shows a very simple event handling example. We have one push button. By clicking on the push button, we terminate the application.

Qt Signals And Slots Tutorial Cheat

This is the header file.

We display a QPushButton on the window.

The connect() method connects a signal to the slot. When we click on the Quit button, the clicked signal is generated. The qApp is a global pointer to the application object. It is defined in the <QApplication> header file. The quit() method is called when the clicked signal is emitted.

This is the main file.

KeyPress

In the following example, we react to a key press.

This is the keypress.h header file.

The application terminates if we press the Escape key.

One of the ways of working with events in Qt5 is to reimplement an event handler. The QKeyEvent is an event object, which holds information about what has happened. In our case, we use the event object to determine which key was actually pressed.

This is the main file.

QMoveEvent

The QMoveEvent class contains event parameters for move events.Move events are sent to widgets that have been moved.

This is the move.h header file.

In our code programming example, we react to a move event. We determine the current x, y coordinates of the upper left corner of the client area of the window and set those values to the title of the window.

We use the QMoveEvent object to determine the x, y values.

We convert the integer values to strings.

The setWindowTitle() method sets the text to the title of the window.

This is the main file.

Disconnecting a signal

A signal can be disconnected from the slot. The next example shows how we can accomplish this.

In the header file, we have declared two slots. The slots is not a C++ keyword, it is a Qt5 extension. These extensions are handled by the preprocessor, before the code is compiled. When we use signals and slots in our classes, we must provide a Q_OBJECT macro at the beginning of the class definition. Otherwise, the preprocessor would complain.

In our example, we have a button and a check box. The check box connects and disconnects a slot from the buttons clicked signal. This example must be executed from the command line.

Here we connect signals to our user defined slots.

If we click on the Click button, we send the 'Button clicked' text to the terminal window.

Inside the onCheck() slot, we connect or disconnect the onClick() slot from the Click button, depending on the received state.

This is the main file.

Timer

A timer is used to implement single shot or repetitive tasks. A good example where we use a timer is a clock; each second we must update our label displaying the current time.

This is the header file.

In our example, we display a current local time on the window.

To display a time, we use a label widget.

Here we determine the current local time. We set it to the label widget.

We start the timer. Every 1000 ms a timer event is generated.

To work with timer events, we must reimplement the timerEvent() method.

This is the main file.

This chapter was dedicated to events and signals in Qt5.