qt-creator/doc/api/qtcreator-dev-wizards.qdoc

/****************************************************************************
**
** Copyright (C) 2015 The Qt Company Ltd.
** Contact: http://www.qt.io/licensing
**
** This file is part of Qt Creator
**
**
** GNU Free Documentation License
**
** Alternatively, this file may be used under the terms of the GNU Free
** Documentation License version 1.3 as published by the Free Software
** Foundation and appearing in the file included in the packaging of this
** file.
**
**
****************************************************************************/

/*!
    \page qtcreator-dev-wizards.html
    \title Creating Wizards in Code

    \section1 Introduction

    If the functionality provided by template-based
    \l{http://doc.qt.io/qtcreator/creator-project-wizards.html}{custom wizards}
    is not sufficient for your case, you can write wizards in code.

    A wizard in Qt Creator is an instance of a class implementing
    the Core::IWizardFactory interface that is registered with
    ExtensionSystem::PluginManager.

    Implementing wizards requires:
    \list
    \li Deciding on a base class:
       \list
       \li Core::IWizardFactory is a very generic interface that does
           not make any assumption about what the wizard does and
           what its UI looks like.

       \li Core::BaseFileWizardFactory should be used for wizards that
           generate files using a UI based on Utils::Wizard.
       \endlist

    \li Providing a set of parameters that determine how the wizard shows up
        in the list of wizards in the  \uicontrol{New File or Project} dialog.

        When deriving from Core::IWizardFactory, the constructor has to call
        the following setters provided by the base class:

        \list
        \li \c setId
        \li \c setWizardKind
        \li \c setIcon
        \li \c setDescription
        \li \c setDisplayName
        \li \c setCategory
        \li \c setDisplayCategory
        \li \c setDescriptionImage
        \li \c setRequiredFeatures
        \li \c setFlags
        \endlist

        When deriving from Core::BaseFileWizardFactory, a parameter class
        Core::BaseFileWizardParameters needs to be passed to the constructor,
        on which the parameters can be set. This allows for easy creation
        of several wizard instances with slightly different parameters.

    \li Implementing the wizard UI

        Typically, this will be a class derived from Utils::Wizard.
        Utils::Wizard extends QWizard with the functionality to show a progress
        bar on the left.

    \li Implementing the wizard functionality

        When deriving from Core::BaseFileWizardFactory, a list of Core::GeneratedFile
        needs to be populated with the files and their contents.
        \note The files are not actually written to the disk. This will be
        done by Core::BaseFileWizardFactory after performing overwrite checks and
        prompting the user accordingly.

    \endlist

    \section2 Relevant Classes

    \table
    \header
    \li Class
    \li Description

    \row
    \li Core::IWizardFactory
    \li Qt Creator wizard interface, implementations of which are registered with
        ExtensionSystem::PluginManager.

    \row
    \li Core::BaseFileWizardFactory
    \li Inherits Core::IWizardFactory and provides a base class for generating files with a UI
        based on QWizard.

    \row
    \li Core::BaseFileWizardParameters
    \li Contains parameters for Core::BaseFileWizard.

    \row
    \li Core::GeneratedFile
    \li A file as produced by Core::BaseFileWizard, containing name, contents and some
        attributes.

    \row
    \li Utils::FileWizardPage
    \li Introductory wizard page asking for file name and path.

    \row
    \li Utils::FileWizardDialog
    \li A wizard dialog presenting a Utils::FileWizardPage, which can be extended
        by custom pages.

    \row
    \li Utils::ProjectIntroPage
    \li Introductory wizard page asking for project name and path.

    \row
    \li ProjectExplorer::BaseProjectWizardDialog
    \li Base class for project wizard dialogs, presenting
        a Utils::ProjectIntroPage.

    \endtable

    \section2 Parameters

    The parameters listed below determine how the wizard shows up
    in the list of wizards in the  \uicontrol{New File or Project} dialog.

    Wizards in Qt Creator are grouped by categories.

    \table
    \header
    \li Type
    \li Parameter Name
    \li Description

    \row
    \li Core::IWizardFactory::WizardKind
    \li kind
    \li Enumeration value that indicates the type of the wizard (project or file).

    \row
    \li QIcon
    \li icon
    \li Icon to show.

    \row
    \li QString
    \li description
    \li Descriptive text.

    \row
    \li QString
    \li displayName
    \li Name to be shown in the list.

    \row
    \li QString
    \li id
    \li Unique identifier for the wizard. It also determines the order within a category.

    \row
    \li QString
    \li category
    \li Identifier of the category under which the wizard is to be listed. It also
        determines the order of the categories.
    \
    \row
    \li QString
    \li displayCategory
    \li Description of the category.
    \endtable

    \section1 Example

    \section2 Introduction

    In this example, we create a wizard
    for writing HTML files consisting of a title and a paragraph,
    making use of QXmlStreamWriter.

    For the UI, we use Utils::FileWizardDialog and extend it by a page
    letting the user enter title and contents.

    In our BaseFileWizard implementation, we create the file contents
    using QXmlStreamWriter.

    \section2 The WebContentPageWizardPage Class

    Let us start with the wizard page. We use a QLineEdit for the title
    and a QPlainTextEdit for the content, arranged in a QGridLayout with
    descriptive labels.
    \note The QGridLayout was chosen to be able to accommodate the large
    vertical span of the QPlainTextEdit. For standard controls, a
    QFormLayout should be considered, which will lay out the labels
    according to the platform guide lines.

    On top of that, we implement validation logic to ensure content is entered.
    We implement QWizardPage::isComplete() to return true when both input widgets
    have contents, enabling the \uicontrol{Next} button. For this to happen
    as the user enters text, we need to connect to the changed() signal of the
    controls and emit QWizardPage::completeChanged() once the complete status changes.

    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizard.h 1

    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizard.cpp 1

    \section2 The WebContentWizardDialog Class

    The wizard dialog extends Utils::FileWizardDialog, which presents an
    introductory page asking for file name and path.
    We add our WebContentPageWizardPage after that.

    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizard.h 2

    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizard.cpp 2

    \section2 The WebContentWizard Class

    In our implementation of Core::BaseFileWizard, we overwrite
    createWizardDialog() to return an instance of our WebContentWizardDialog,
    initially set to the path passed in. We also add the extension pages
    we receive. Extension pages are for example the wizard pages asking for
    a project to add the files to and whether to add the files to a version control
    system.

    In generateFiles(), we obtain the parameters from our wizard and populate
    the list of Core::GeneratedFile with our file. To generate the contents,
    we use QXmlStreamWriter.

    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizard.h 3

    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizard.cpp 3

    \section2 Plugin Registration

    In order for the wizard to be found by the \uicontrol{New} dialog, we need to
    register it with ExtensionSystem::PluginManager, which also takes care
    of deleting it:

    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizardplugin.cpp 0

    \section2 Complete Example Code

    Here is the complete code of \c webpagewizard.h:
    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizard.h 0
    The complete code of \c webpagewizard.cpp looks as follows:
    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizard.cpp 0

    The registration of the wizard in the \c initialize() function
    of a plugin looks like:
    \snippet webpagewizard/webpagewizardplugin.cpp 0
*/