QFormBuilder Class

Detailed Description

The QFormBuilder class provides a mechanism for dynamically creating user interfaces at run-time, based on UI files created with Qt Widgets Designer. For example:

        MyForm::MyForm(QWidget *parent)
            : QWidget(parent)
        {
            QFormBuilder builder;
            QFile file(":/forms/myWidget.ui");
            file.open(QFile::ReadOnly);
            QWidget *myWidget = builder.load(&file, this);
            file.close();

            auto *layout = new QVBoxLayout(this);
            layout->addWidget(myWidget);
        }

By including the user interface in the example's resources (myForm.qrc), we ensure that it will be present when the example is run:

    <!DOCTYPE RCC><RCC version="1.0">
    <qresource prefix="/forms">
       <file>mywidget.ui</file>
    </qresource>
    </RCC>

QFormBuilder extends the QAbstractFormBuilder base class with a number of functions that are used to support custom widget plugins:

• pluginPaths() returns the list of paths that the form builder searches when loading custom widget plugins.
• addPluginPath() allows additional paths to be registered with the form builder.
• setPluginPath() is used to replace the existing list of paths with a list obtained from some other source.
• clearPluginPaths() removes all paths registered with the form builder.
• customWidgets() returns a list of interfaces to plugins that can be used to create new instances of registered custom widgets.

The QFormBuilder class is typically used by custom components and applications that embed Qt Widgets Designer. Standalone applications that need to dynamically generate user interfaces at run-time use the QUiLoader class, found in the QtUiTools module.