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31 \brief An overview of the drag and drop system provided by Qt.
33 \ingroup qt-gui-concepts
35 Drag and drop provides a simple visual mechanism which users can use
36 to transfer information between and within applications. (In the
37 literature this is referred to as a "direct manipulation model".) Drag
38 and drop is similar in function to the clipboard's cut and paste
43 This document describes the basic drag and drop mechanism and
44 outlines the approach used to enable it in custom widgets. Drag
45 and drop operations are also supported by Qt's item views and by
46 the graphics view framework. More information is available in
47 \l{Using drag and drop with item views} and \l{Graphics View
50 \section1 Drag and Drop Classes
52 These classes deal with drag and drop and the necessary mime type
53 encoding and decoding.
55 \annotatedlist draganddrop
57 \section1 Configuration
59 The QApplication object provides some properties that are related
60 to drag and drop operations:
63 \i \l{QApplication::startDragTime} describes the amount of time in
64 milliseconds that the user must hold down a mouse button over an
65 object before a drag will begin.
66 \i \l{QApplication::startDragDistance} indicates how far the user has to
67 move the mouse while holding down a mouse button before the movement
68 will be interpreted as dragging. Use of high values for this quantity
69 prevents accidental dragging when the user only meant to click on an
73 These quantities provide sensible default values for you to use if you
74 provide drag and drop support in your widgets.
78 To start a drag, create a QDrag object, and call its
79 exec() function. In most applications, it is a good idea to begin a drag
80 and drop operation only after a mouse button has been pressed and the
81 cursor has been moved a certain distance. However, the simplest way to
82 enable dragging from a widget is to reimplement the widget's
83 \l{QWidget::mousePressEvent()}{mousePressEvent()} and start a drag
86 \snippet doc/src/snippets/dragging/mainwindow.cpp 0
88 \snippet doc/src/snippets/dragging/mainwindow.cpp 2
90 Although the user may take some time to complete the dragging operation,
91 as far as the application is concerned the exec() function is a blocking
92 function that returns with \l{Qt::DropActions}{one of several values}.
93 These indicate how the operation ended, and are described in more detail
96 Note that the exec() function does not block the main event loop.
98 For widgets that need to distinguish between mouse clicks and drags, it
99 is useful to reimplement the widget's
100 \l{QWidget::mousePressEvent()}{mousePressEvent()} function to record to
101 start position of the drag:
103 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 6
105 Later, in \l{QWidget::mouseMoveEvent()}{mouseMoveEvent()}, we can determine
106 whether a drag should begin, and construct a drag object to handle the
109 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 7
111 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 8
113 This particular approach uses the \l QPoint::manhattanLength() function
114 to get a rough estimate of the distance between where the mouse click
115 occurred and the current cursor position. This function trades accuracy
116 for speed, and is usually suitable for this purpose.
120 To be able to receive media dropped on a widget, call
121 \l{QWidget::setAcceptDrops()}{setAcceptDrops(true)} for the widget,
122 and reimplement the \l{QWidget::dragEnterEvent()}{dragEnterEvent()} and
123 \l{QWidget::dropEvent()}{dropEvent()} event handler functions.
125 For example, the following code enables drop events in the constructor of
126 a QWidget subclass, making it possible to usefully implement drop event
129 \snippet doc/src/snippets/dropevents/window.cpp 0
131 \snippet doc/src/snippets/dropevents/window.cpp 1
132 \snippet doc/src/snippets/dropevents/window.cpp 2
134 The dragEnterEvent() function is typically used to inform Qt about the
135 types of data that the widget accepts.
136 You must reimplement this function if you want to receive either
137 QDragMoveEvent or QDropEvent in your reimplementations of
138 \l{QWidget::dragMoveEvent()}{dragMoveEvent()} and
139 \l{QWidget::dropEvent()}{dropEvent()}.
141 The following code shows how \l{QWidget::dragEnterEvent()}{dragEnterEvent()}
142 can be reimplemented to
143 tell the drag and drop system that we can only handle plain text:
145 \snippet doc/src/snippets/dropevents/window.cpp 3
147 The \l{QWidget::dropEvent()}{dropEvent()} is used to unpack dropped data
148 and handle it in way that is suitable for your application.
150 In the following code, the text supplied in the event is passed to a
151 QTextBrowser and a QComboBox is filled with the list of MIME types that
152 are used to describe the data:
154 \snippet doc/src/snippets/dropevents/window.cpp 4
156 In this case, we accept the proposed action without checking what it is.
157 In a real world application, it may be necessary to return from the
158 \l{QWidget::dropEvent()}{dropEvent()} function without accepting the
159 proposed action or handling
160 the data if the action is not relevant. For example, we may choose to
161 ignore Qt::LinkAction actions if we do not support
162 links to external sources in our application.
164 \section2 Overriding Proposed Actions
166 We may also ignore the proposed action, and perform some other action on
167 the data. To do this, we would call the event object's
168 \l{QDropEvent::setDropAction()}{setDropAction()} with the preferred
169 action from Qt::DropAction before calling \l{QEvent::}{accept()}.
170 This ensures that the replacement drop action is used instead of the
173 For more sophisticated applications, reimplementing
174 \l{QWidget::dragMoveEvent()}{dragMoveEvent()} and
175 \l{QWidget::dragLeaveEvent()}{dragLeaveEvent()} will let you make
176 certain parts of your widgets sensitive to drop events, and give you more
177 control over drag and drop in your application.
179 \section2 Subclassing Complex Widgets
181 Certain standard Qt widgets provide their own support for drag and drop.
182 When subclassing these widgets, it may be necessary to reimplement
183 \l{QWidget::dragMoveEvent()}{dragMoveEvent()} in addition to
184 \l{QWidget::dragEnterEvent()}{dragEnterEvent()} and
185 \l{QWidget::dropEvent()}{dropEvent()} to prevent the base class from
186 providing default drag and drop handling, and to handle any special
187 cases you are interested in.
189 \section1 Drag and Drop Actions
191 In the simplest case, the target of a drag and drop action receives a
192 copy of the data being dragged, and the source decides whether to
193 delete the original. This is described by the \c CopyAction action.
194 The target may also choose to handle other actions, specifically the
195 \c MoveAction and \c LinkAction actions. If the source calls
196 QDrag::exec(), and it returns \c MoveAction, the source is responsible
197 for deleting any original data if it chooses to do so. The QMimeData
198 and QDrag objects created by the source widget \e{should not be deleted}
199 - they will be destroyed by Qt. The target is responsible for taking
200 ownership of the data sent in the drag and drop operation; this is
201 usually done by keeping references to the data.
203 If the target understands the \c LinkAction action, it should
204 store its own reference to the original information; the source
205 does not need to perform any further processing on the data. The
206 most common use of drag and drop actions is when performing a
207 Move within the same widget; see the section on \l{Drop Actions}
208 for more information about this feature.
210 The other major use of drag actions is when using a reference type
211 such as text/uri-list, where the dragged data are actually references
214 \section1 Adding New Drag and Drop Types
216 Drag and drop is not limited to text and images. Any type of information
217 can be transferred in a drag and drop operation. To drag information
218 between applications, the applications must be able to indicate to each
219 other which data formats they can accept and which they can produce.
220 This is achieved using
221 \l{http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1341.txt}{MIME types}. The QDrag
222 object constructed by the source contains a list of MIME types that it
223 uses to represent the data (ordered from most appropriate to least
224 appropriate), and the drop target uses one of these to access the data.
225 For common data types, the convenience functions handle the MIME types
226 used transparently but, for custom data types, it is necessary to
227 state them explicitly.
229 To implement drag and drop actions for a type of information that is
230 not covered by the QDrag convenience functions, the first and most
231 important step is to look for existing formats that are appropriate:
232 The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (\l{http://www.iana.org}{IANA})
234 \l{http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/}{hierarchical
235 list of MIME media types} at the Information Sciences Institute
236 (\l{http://www.isi.edu}{ISI}).
237 Using standard MIME types maximizes the interoperability of
238 your application with other software now and in the future.
240 To support an additional media type, simply set the data in the QMimeData
241 object with the \l{QMimeData::setData()}{setData()} function, supplying
242 the full MIME type and a QByteArray containing the data in the appropriate
243 format. The following code takes a pixmap from a label and stores it
244 as a Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file in a QMimeData object:
246 \snippet doc/src/snippets/separations/finalwidget.cpp 0
248 Of course, for this case we could have simply used
249 \l{QMimeData::setImageData()}{setImageData()} instead to supply image data
250 in a variety of formats:
252 \snippet doc/src/snippets/separations/finalwidget.cpp 1
254 The QByteArray approach is still useful in this case because it provides
255 greater control over the amount of data stored in the QMimeData object.
257 Note that custom datatypes used in item views must be declared as
258 \l{QMetaObject}{meta objects} and that stream operators for them
261 \section1 Drop Actions
263 In the clipboard model, the user can \e cut or \e copy the source
264 information, then later paste it. Similarly in the drag and drop
265 model, the user can drag a \e copy of the information or they can drag
266 the information itself to a new place (\e moving it). The
267 drag and drop model has an additional complication for the programmer:
268 The program doesn't know whether the user wants to cut or copy the
269 information until the operation is complete. This often makes no
270 difference when dragging information between applications, but within
271 an application it is important to check which drop action was used.
273 We can reimplement the mouseMoveEvent() for a widget, and start a drag
274 and drop operation with a combination of possible drop actions. For
275 example, we may want to ensure that dragging always moves objects in
278 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 7
280 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 8
282 The action returned by the exec() function may default to a
283 \c CopyAction if the information is dropped into another application
284 but, if it is dropped in another widget in the same application, we
285 may obtain a different drop action.
287 The proposed drop actions can be filtered in a widget's dragMoveEvent()
288 function. However, it is possible to accept all proposed actions in
289 the dragEnterEvent() and let the user decide which they want to accept
292 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 0
294 When a drop occurs in the widget, the dropEvent() handler function is
295 called, and we can deal with each possible action in turn. First, we
296 deal with drag and drop operations within the same widget:
298 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 1
300 In this case, we refuse to deal with move operations. Each type of drop
301 action that we accept is checked and dealt with accordingly:
303 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 2
304 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 3
305 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 4
307 \snippet doc/src/snippets/draganddrop/dragwidget.cpp 5
309 Note that we checked for individual drop actions in the above code.
310 As mentioned above in the section on
311 \l{#Overriding Proposed Actions}{Overriding Proposed Actions}, it is
312 sometimes necessary to override the proposed drop action and choose a
313 different one from the selection of possible drop actions.
314 To do this, you need to check for the presence of each action in the value
315 supplied by the event's \l{QDropEvent::}{possibleActions()}, set the drop
316 action with \l{QDropEvent::}{setDropAction()}, and call
317 \l{QEvent::}{accept()}.
319 \section1 Drop Rectangles
321 The widget's dragMoveEvent() can be used to restrict drops to certain parts
322 of the widget by only accepting the proposed drop actions when the cursor
323 is within those areas. For example, the following code accepts any proposed
324 drop actions when the cursor is over a child widget (\c dropFrame):
326 \snippet doc/src/snippets/droprectangle/window.cpp 0
328 The dragMoveEvent() can also be used if you need to give visual
329 feedback during a drag and drop operation, to scroll the window, or
330 whatever is appropriate.
332 \section1 The Clipboard
334 Applications can also communicate with each other by putting data on
335 the clipboard. To access this, you need to obtain a QClipboard object
336 from the QApplication object:
338 \snippet examples/widgets/charactermap/mainwindow.cpp 3
340 The QMimeData class is used to represent data that is transferred to and
341 from the clipboard. To put data on the clipboard, you can use the
342 setText(), setImage(), and setPixmap() convenience functions for common
343 data types. These functions are similar to those found in the QMimeData
344 class, except that they also take an additional argument that controls
345 where the data is stored: If \l{QClipboard::Mode}{Clipboard} is
346 specified, the data is placed on the clipboard; if
347 \l{QClipboard::Mode}{Selection} is specified, the data is placed in the
348 mouse selection (on X11 only). By default, data is put on the clipboard.
350 For example, we can copy the contents of a QLineEdit to the clipboard
351 with the following code:
353 \snippet examples/widgets/charactermap/mainwindow.cpp 11
355 Data with different MIME types can also be put on the clipboard.
356 Construct a QMimeData object and set data with setData() function in
357 the way described in the previous section; this object can then be
358 put on the clipboard with the
359 \l{QClipboard::setMimeData()}{setMimeData()} function.
361 The QClipboard class can notify the application about changes to the
362 data it contains via its \l{QClipboard::dataChanged()}{dataChanged()}
363 signal. For example, we can monitor the clipboard by connecting this
364 signal to a slot in a widget:
366 \snippet doc/src/snippets/clipboard/clipwindow.cpp 0
368 The slot connected to this signal can read the data on the clipboard
369 using one of the MIME types that can be used to represent it:
371 \snippet doc/src/snippets/clipboard/clipwindow.cpp 1
373 \snippet doc/src/snippets/clipboard/clipwindow.cpp 2
375 The \l{QClipboard::selectionChanged()}{selectionChanged()} signal can
376 be used on X11 to monitor the mouse selection.
381 \o \l{draganddrop/draggableicons}{Draggable Icons}
382 \o \l{draganddrop/draggabletext}{Draggable Text}
383 \o \l{draganddrop/dropsite}{Drop Site}
384 \o \l{draganddrop/fridgemagnets}{Fridge Magnets}
385 \o \l{draganddrop/puzzle}{Drag and Drop Puzzle}
388 \section1 Interoperating with Other Applications
390 On X11, the public \l{http://www.newplanetsoftware.com/xdnd/}{XDND
391 protocol} is used, while on Windows Qt uses the OLE standard, and
392 Qt for Mac OS X uses the Carbon Drag Manager. On X11, XDND uses MIME,
393 so no translation is necessary. The Qt API is the same regardless of
394 the platform. On Windows, MIME-aware applications can communicate by
395 using clipboard format names that are MIME types. Already some
396 Windows applications use MIME naming conventions for their
397 clipboard formats. Internally, Qt uses QWindowsMime and
398 QMacPasteboardMime for translating proprietary clipboard formats
399 to and from MIME types.
401 On X11, Qt also supports drops via the Motif Drag & Drop Protocol. The
402 implementation incorporates some code that was originally written by
403 Daniel Dardailler, and adapted for Qt by Matt Koss <koss@napri.sk>
404 and Nokia. Here is the original copyright notice:
407 Copyright 1996 Daniel Dardailler.
408 Copyright 1999 Matt Koss
410 Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software
411 for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above
412 copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright
413 notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation,
414 and that the name of Daniel Dardailler not be used in advertising or
415 publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific,
416 written prior permission. Daniel Dardailler makes no representations
417 about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is
418 provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
420 \omit NOTE: The original version of this copyright notice can be found
421 in qmotifdnd_x11.cpp. \endomit
423 \note The Motif Drag \& Drop Protocol only allows receivers to
424 request data in response to a QDropEvent. If you attempt to
425 request data in response to e.g. a QDragMoveEvent, an empty
426 QByteArray is returned.