Qt Application – Main Window Class

The main window of a Qt Application contains the menu bar, any tool bars, optional dock widgets, a status line and a central widget (for example, contains the main document, which for this project will contain the BASIC program).

To create the new MainWindow class, the new file wizard in QtCreator was again used.  This time the Qt type was selected under Files and Classes, and Qt Designer Form Class was selected on the right upper box, which will create both a C++ header and a source file for the new class along with Qt Designer form file.  After clicking Choose..., the wizard asks for the form template type, where Main Window was selected.  The defaults were selected for the remaining dialogs of the wizard.

The wizard sets up a simple form for main window containing a central widget, menu bar, main tool bar and a status bar.  These can be seen in the Designer window in QtCreator (edit the mainwindow.ui file, by double clicking on it in QtCreator's project file list).  For the moment, nothing will be down with this as it will remain inactive (temporarily).  More about the initial implementation of this class in the next post.