Qt Signal Slot Same Class

1. Qt Signal Slot Class
2. Qt Signal Slot Same Classic
3. Qt Signal Slot Example

One key and distinctive feature of Qt framework is the use of signals and slots to connect widgets and related actions. But as powerful the feature is, it may look compelling to a lot of developers not used to such a model, and it may take some time at the beginning to get used to understand how to use signals and slots properly. However, since version 4.4, we can relay on auto-connections

QtCore.SIGNAL and QtCore.SLOT macros allow Python to interface with Qt signal and slot delivery mechanisms. This is the old way of using signals and slots. The example below uses the well known clicked signal from a QPushButton. The connect method has a non python-friendly syntax.

• Slots and signals must have same parameters. Otherwise, the connection will not occur. Not only for connection, slot function must have same parameters with signal. For example, this sample doesn’t work: QObject::connect(ui.comboBox, SIGNAL (activated(int)), this, SLOT (onComboboxActivated)); But it works.
• The connection mechanism uses a vector indexed by signals. But all the slots waste space in the vector and there are usually more slots than signals in an object. So from Qt 4.6, a new internal signal index which only includes the signal index is used. While developing with Qt, you only need to know about the absolute method index.
• I have a class X with a slot, and a class Y with a signal. I'm setting up the connection from class X, and created a public method in class Y to emit the signal from class X (I'm not sure this step was necessary). Then, if I call that method from class X, signal is emitted, and slot is executed.

to simplify using this feature.
Back in the old days, signals and slots connections were set up for compile time (or even run time) manually, where developers used the following sentence:
this is, we stated the sender object's name, the signal we want to connect, the receiver object's name and the slot to connect the signal to.
Now there's an automatic way to connect signals and slots by means of QMetaObject's ability to make connections between signals and suitably-named slots. And that's the key: if we use an appropriate naming convention, signals and slots will be properly connected without the need to write additional code for that to happen. So by declaring and implementing a slot with a name that follows the following convention:
uic (the User Interface Compiler of Qt) will automatically generate code in the dialog's setupUi() function to connect button's signal with dialog's slot.
So back to our example, the class implementing the slot must define it like this:
We then write the method's implementatio to carry on an action when the signal is emitted:
In brief, we have seen that by using automatic connection of signals and slots we can count on both a standard naming convention and at the same time an explicit interface for designers to embrace. If the proper source code implements such a given interface, interface designers can later check that everything is working fine without the need to code.

Demonstrates multi-thread programming using Qt.

Contents:

Overview

In the Custom Type Example, we showed how to integrate custom types with the meta-object system, enabling them to be stored in QVariant objects, written out in debugging information and used in signal-slot communication.

In this example, we create a new value class, Block, and register it with the meta-object system to enable us to send instances of it between threads using queued signals and slots.

The Block Class

The Block class is similar to the Message class described in the Custom Type Example. It provides the default constructor, copy constructor and destructor in the public section of the class that the meta-object system requires. It describes a colored rectangle.

We will still need to register it with the meta-object system at run-time by calling the qRegisterMetaType() template function before we make any signal-slot connections that use this type. Even though we do not intend to use the type with QVariant in this example, it is good practice to also declare the new type with Q_DECLARE_METATYPE().

The implementation of the Block class is trivial, so we avoid quoting it here.

The Window Class

We define a simple Window class with a public slot that accepts a Block object. The rest of the class is concerned with managing the user interface and handling images.

The Window class also contains a worker thread, provided by a RenderThread object. This will emit signals to send Block objects to the window's addBlock(Block) slot.

Qt Signal Slot Class

The parts of the Window class that are most relevant are the constructor and the addBlock(Block) slot.

The constructor creates a thread for rendering images, sets up a user interface containing a label and two push buttons that are connected to slots in the same class.

In the last of these connections, we connect a signal in the RenderThread object to the addBlock(Block) slot in the window.

The rest of the constructor simply sets up the layout of the window.

The addBlock(Block) slot receives blocks from the rendering thread via the signal-slot connection set up in the constructor:

We simply paint these onto the label as they arrive.

The RenderThread Class

The RenderThread class processes an image, creating Block objects and using the sendBlock(Block) signal to send them to other components in the example.

The constructor and destructor are not quoted here. These take care of setting up the thread's internal state and cleaning up when it is destroyed.

Processing is started with the processImage() function, which calls the RenderThread class's reimplementation of the QThread::run() function:

Ignoring the details of the way the image is processed, we see that the signal containing a block is emitted in the usual way:

Each signal that is emitted will be queued and delivered later to the window's addBlock(Block) slot.

Registering the Type

In the example's main() function, we perform the registration of the Block class as a custom type with the meta-object system by calling the qRegisterMetaType() template function:

Qt Signal Slot Same Classic

This call is placed here to ensure that the type is registered before any signal-slot connections are made that use it.

The rest of the main() function is concerned with setting a seed for the pseudo-random number generator, creating and showing the window, and setting a default image. See the source code for the implementation of the createImage() function.

Qt Signal Slot Example

Further Reading

This example showed how a custom type can be registered with the meta-object system so that it can be used with signal-slot connections between threads. For ordinary communication involving direct signals and slots, it is enough to simply declare the type in the way described in the Custom Type Example.

In practice, both the Q_DECLARE_METATYPE() macro and the qRegisterMetaType() template function can be used to register custom types, but qRegisterMetaType() is only required if you need to perform signal-slot communication or need to create and destroy objects of the custom type at run-time.

More information on using custom types with Qt can be found in the Creating Custom Qt Types document.

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