Prashanth Udupa

GUIXML Editor in Qt Creator

When you open a GCF project in Qt Creator, you will notice that the project tree on the left hand side also shows GUIXML files against each component and the global ComponentLoaderComponent.xml (CLC for short) file. The CLC file describes the order of loading of components. Each component’s GUIXML file describes the GUI of the component.

When you double click on any of the GUIXML files, you will get a fancy XML editor that color codes the whole file. Known elements and attributes are marked in bold face; while unknown ones are color coded but in italics. The custom XML editor works only for GCF’s GUIXML files, Qt Creator will default to a simple QPlainTextEdit for other kinds of XML files. We have also implemented find support for the GUIXML editor; that way users can just hit “Ctrl+F” and search for text using the familiar “find text bar” along the bottom edge of the window.

[ Chapter 5 of the document on Writing Qt Creator Plugins was very useful for implementing this feature. Thanks to my colleague Vasudha for researching on this one]

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Prashanth Udupa

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2 responses to “GUIXML Editor in Qt Creator”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Thanks

    Hi Prashanth,

    First, let me simply say thanks for gcf and for the qtcreator integration 🙂

    1) When do expect availablility of the plugin? Soon enough that I can wait to start my new project? Is it now available to play with through svn?

    2) Why do you require GCF to be part of the generated application when using CreateApplicationWizard? This is very bloat heavy and not necessary, imo. It’s very inconvenient on a Linux platform

    3) I’d love to see a community established for gcf. This is I’m a big fan of gcf and huge proponent of component based architectures. What are your thoughts on a mail-list, forum, or group being started?

    4) I would also love to see a repository of community produced components for all to share.. any thoughts on that?

    thanks for your great work,
    Peter Alexander

    1. Prashanth Udupa Avatar
      Prashanth Udupa

      Re: Thanks

      Thanks for your kind words about GCF 🙂

      1. We hope to release the GCFSupport plugin for Qt Creator along with GCF 2.3 release in December 09.

      2. I agree with you. Having GCF code included in each and every product just makes things bloat up. However we have noticed that most people distribute Qt applications along with Qt runtime libraries. We figured that GCF libraries would be distributed along with GCF applications anyway, so why not include the whole thing as a part of the generated application. Also developers can ensure that their entire app along with GCF is compiled using the same compiler/libraries.

      But I can see your point. We will work towards fixing this. Thanks.

      3. We have plans to establish a forum (like QtCenter) for GCF (and VTK Designer). Should take a couple of months time.

      4. We hope to have the community produced components repository within the forum itself. Hope to have more details soon..