They are very simple to use. Once the library has been included (<tt>#include <KStandardAction></tt>), simply supply it with what you want the function to do and which KActionCollection to add it to. For example:
This creates a KAction with the correct icon, text and shortcut and even adds it to the File menu.
==Adding the action to menus and toolbars==
At the moment, the new "Clear" action has been created but it hasn't been associated with any menus or toolbars. This is done with a KDE technology called XMLGUI, which does nice things like movable toolbars for you.
At the moment, the new "Clear" action has been created but it hasn't been associated with any menus or toolbars. This is done with a KDE technology called XMLGUI, which does nice things like movable toolbars for you.
They are very simple to use. Once the library has been included (#include <KStandardAction>), simply supply it with what you want the function to do and which KActionCollection to add it to. For example:
KStandardAction::quit(kapp, SLOT(quit()), actionCollection());
This creates a KAction with the correct icon, text and shortcut and even adds it to the File menu.
Adding the action to menus and toolbars
At the moment, the new "Clear" action has been created but it hasn't been associated with any menus or toolbars. This is done with a KDE technology called XMLGUI, which does nice things like movable toolbars for you.
Note
In a later version of KDE4, XMLGUI, may be replaced with a new framework called liveui. For now, XMLGUI, is the only and correct way to set up the UI.
XMLGUI
The setupGUI() function in KXmlGuiWindow depends on the XMLGUI system to construct the GUI, which XMLGUI does by parsing an XML file description of the interface.
The rule for naming this XML file is appnameui.rc, where appname is the name you set in KAboutData (in this case, tutorial3). So in our example, the file is called tutorial3ui.rc, and is located in the build directory. Where the file will ultimately be placed is handled by CMake.
appnameui.rc File
Since the description of the UI is defined with XML, the layout must follow strict rules. This tutorial will not go into great depth on this topic, but for more information, see the detailed XMLGUI page (here is an older tutorial: [1]).
tutorial3ui.rc
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE kpartgui SYSTEM "kpartgui.dtd">
<gui name="tutorial3" version="1">
The <Toolbar> tag allows you to describe the toolbar, which is the bar across the top of the window normally with icons. Here it is given the unique name mainToolBar and its user visible name set to Main Toolbar using the <text> tag. The clear action is added to the toolbar using the <Action> tag, the name parameter in this tag being the string that was passed to the KActionCollection with addAction() in mainwindow.cpp.
Besides having the action in the toolbar, it can also be added to the menubar. Here the action is being added to the File menu of the MenuBar the same way it was added to the toolbar.
Change the 'version' attribute of the <gui> tag if you changed .rc file since the last install to force a system cache update.
CMake
Finally, the tutorial3ui.rc needs to go somewhere where KDE can find it (can't just leave it in the source directory!). This means the project needs to be installed somewhere.
At the moment, the new "Clear" action has been created but it hasn't been associated with any menus or toolbars. This is done with a KDE technology called XMLGUI, which does nice things like movable toolbars for you.
Note
In a later version of KDE4, XMLGUI, may be replaced with a new framework called liveui. For now, XMLGUI, is the only and correct way to set up the UI.
XMLGUI
The setupGUI() function in KXmlGuiWindow depends on the XMLGUI system to construct the GUI, which XMLGUI does by parsing an XML file description of the interface.
The rule for naming this XML file is appnameui.rc, where appname is the name you set in KAboutData (in this case, tutorial3). So in our example, the file is called tutorial3ui.rc, and is located in the build directory. Where the file will ultimately be placed is handled by CMake.
appnameui.rc File
Since the description of the UI is defined with XML, the layout must follow strict rules. This tutorial will not go into great depth on this topic, but for more information, see the detailed XMLGUI page (here is an older tutorial: [2]).
tutorial3ui.rc
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE kpartgui SYSTEM "kpartgui.dtd">
<gui name="tutorial3" version="1">
The <Toolbar> tag allows you to describe the toolbar, which is the bar across the top of the window normally with icons. Here it is given the unique name mainToolBar and its user visible name set to Main Toolbar using the <text> tag. The clear action is added to the toolbar using the <Action> tag, the name parameter in this tag being the string that was passed to the KActionCollection with addAction() in mainwindow.cpp.
Besides having the action in the toolbar, it can also be added to the menubar. Here the action is being added to the File menu of the MenuBar the same way it was added to the toolbar.
Change the 'version' attribute of the <gui> tag if you changed .rc file since the last install to force a system cache update.
CMake
Finally, the tutorial3ui.rc needs to go somewhere where KDE can find it (can't just leave it in the source directory!). This means the project needs to be installed somewhere.
This file is almost identical to the one for tutorial2, but with two extra lines at the end that describe where the files are to be installed. Firstly, the tutorial3 target is installed to the BIN_INSTALL_DIR then the tutorial3ui.rc file that describes the layout of the user interface is installed to the application's data directory.
Make, Install And Run
If you don't have write access to where your KDE4 installation directory, you can install it to a folder in your home directory.
To tell CMake where to install the program, set the DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX switch. You probably just want to install it somewhere local for testing (it's probably a bit silly to go to the effort of installing these tutorials to your KDE directory), so the following might be appropriate:
This file is almost identical to the one for tutorial2, but with two extra lines at the end that describe where the files are to be installed. Firstly, the tutorial3 target is installed to the BIN_INSTALL_DIR then the tutorial3ui.rc file that describes the layout of the user interface is installed to the application's data directory.
Make, Install And Run
If you don't have write access to where your KDE4 installation directory, you can install it to a folder in your home directory.
To tell CMake where to install the program, set the DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX switch. You probably just want to install it somewhere local for testing (it's probably a bit silly to go to the effort of installing these tutorials to your KDE directory), so the following might be appropriate:
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME
make install
$HOME/bin/tutorial3
which will create a KDE-like directory structure in your user's home directory directory and will install the executable to $HOME/bin/tutorial3.