315 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
315 lines
13 KiB
Plaintext
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Qt 2.1 introduces new features as well as many improvements over the
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2.0.x series. This file will only give an overview of the main changes
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since version 2.0.2. A complete list would simply be too large to be
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useful. For more detail see the online documentation which is included
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in this distribution, and also available on
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http://qt.nokia.com/doc/
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The Qt version 2.1 series is binary compatible with the 2.0.x
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series - applications compiled for 2.0 will continue to run with 2.1.
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As with previous Qt releases, the API and functionality of Qt is
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completely portable between Microsoft Windows and X11. It is also portable
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between Windows 95, 98 and NT; unlike most toolkits, Qt lets a single
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executable work on all three.
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****************************************************************************
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* Overview *
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****************************************************************************
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As usual, large sections of the documentation have been revised and
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lots of new documentation has been added.
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Much work went into existing classes, based on all the feedback we got
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from our users. A warm thank you to you all at this point, we honestly
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hope to satisfy most of your wishes with the new release.
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Among the things that got a lot of polishing is the new geometry
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management system that was introduced with the 2.x series. Some
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classes, such as QBoxLayout, have been rewritten and many size hints
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and size policies were optimized. As usual with newly introduced
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systems, the occasional bug has been fixed as well. As a result,
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layout in Qt-2.1 is not only nicer but also faster.
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Big parts of the file dialog have been rewritten. It is now
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synchronized in terms of features with the common Windows dialog,
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including fancy drag'n'drop and in-place renaming. You can customize
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both parts of the dialog, the front-end with info and preview widgets,
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the back-end with different network protocols (see the QFileDialog and
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QNetworkProtocol documentation for details).
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Especially interesting for dynamic Qt applications is the newly
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introduced property system. Many interesting things, from scripting up
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to graphical user interface builders, become easier. The technology
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requires a new macro Q_PROPERTY and a new revision of Qt's meta object
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compiler (moc). See the Qt documentation for details.
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Due to strong customer demand, we added a cross-platform way to easily
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implement multi-document interfaces (known as 'MDI'). The widget is
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called QWorkspace and makes this task trivial.
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On X11, text dropping from Motif drag'n'drop applications has been
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added, to make your Qt applications inter-operable with those Motif
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applications that survived Y2K.
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The rich text system, first introduced in Qt-2.0, has been
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revised. Apart from great speed improvements, it now supports HTML
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tables as well as floating images.
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QMultiLineEdit, the text input field in Qt, got the missing word wrap
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functionality. It's probably the last big extension we will add to
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that widget. In Qt 3.0, it will be replaced by a fancier, faster and
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more powerful QTextEdit widget that also deals with different colors
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and fonts in a way similar to the existing QTextView.
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Qt follows the respective GUI style guides even more closely. This
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includes honoring desktop settings, and keyboard shortcuts such as
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Ctrl-Z/Y for undo/redo in line edit and multi-line edit
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controls. Dialog handling for both modal and non-modal dialogs has
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been improved to follow the platform conventions precisely.
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With QIconView, we added a powerful new visualization widget similar
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to QListView and QListBox. It contains optinally labelled pixmap items
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that the user can select, drag around, rename, delete and more.
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Compared to the previous release, we have managed to reduce overall
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memory consumption while improving execution speed and features.
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Below is a list of the major new features in existing classes as well
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as short descriptions of all new classes and the changes in some of
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the extensions shipped with Qt.
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****************************************************************************
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* New major features in existing classes *
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****************************************************************************
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QApplication - new function wakeUpGuiThread() to simplify using threads
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with Qt.
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QArray - added sorting and binary search.
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QColor - custom color support added. qRgb(r,g,b) helper function
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now sets an opaque alpha value instead of a transparent
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one.
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QComboBox - support for text items with icons.
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QFileDialog - many new features including fancy drag'n'drop
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and in-place renaming.
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Methods like setInfoPreviewWidget()and
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setContentsPreviewWidget() make it easy to customize
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the dialog extensively. With QUrlOperator and the
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QNetworkProtocol abstraction, the dialog can operate
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transparently by various different network protocols,
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such as HTTP and FTP (see the Network Extension).
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QFocusEvent - carries a reason() for the event. Possible reasons are
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Mouse, Tab, ActiveWindow, ShortCut and other. The
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addition makes line edit controls behave properly.
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QHeader - added optional visual sort indicator. Revisited API that
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operates on sections only (solves the 'logical' vs. 'actual'
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index confusion). A reworked 'table' example shows how
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to use QHeader in combination with a scrollview to create
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a simple spreadsheet.
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QListBox - many signals and functions added for convenience and
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greater flexibility.
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QListView - various selections modes similar to QListBox, many
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new functions and signals added for convenience and
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greater flexibility.
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QMainWindow - implemented draggable and hidable toolbars. A menubar
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can be made draggable by simply putting it in a toolbar.
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QMetaObject - Parts of the API made public. The meta object allows
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applications to access information about an object's
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properties as well as its signals and slots.
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QMultiLineEdit - added different word wrap modes: WidgetWidth,
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FixedPixelWidth and FixedColumnWidth.
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QObject - property access functions property() and setProperty().
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QPen - added adjustable cap and join styles.
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QPopupMenu - added support for tear-off menus, custom items
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and widget items.
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A new function setItemParameter() makes it possible
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to distinguish between several menu items connected to
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one single slot.
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QPrinter - Now allows printing to the default printer without doing
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setup() first.
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QProgressDialog - auto-reset and auto-close modes.
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QPushButton - added a menu button mode with setPopup().
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QScrollView - support for auto-scrolling on drag move events (drag
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auto scroll mode).
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QSignal - optional additional integer parameter for the emitted
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signal.
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QSimpleRichText - added adjustSize() function that implements a clever
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size hint. Vertical break support for printing. inText()
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hit test.
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QSpinBox - different button symbols, currently UpDownArrows and
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PlusMinus.
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QSplitter - supports three resize modes now, Stretch, KeepSize
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and FollowSizeHint.
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QString - new functions setUnicode(), setUnicodeCodes(), setLatin1(),
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startsWith() and endsWith()
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QStringList - new functions fromStrList(), split(), join() and grep().
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QStyle - some extensions for menu button indicators, default
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button indicators, variable scrollbar extends and toolbar
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handles.
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QStyleSheet - a couple of tags added to the default sheet, such as
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U, NOBR, HEAD, DL, DT, DD and table support (TABLE, TR,
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TD, TH). Many attributes added to existing tags.
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QTextView - basic table support. Contents is selectable, selections
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can be pasted/dragged into other widgets.
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QToolBar - stretchable depending on the orientation (setHorizontalStretchable()
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and setVerticalStretchable(). Added orientationChanged() signal.
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QToolButton - added optional delayed menu with setPopup() and
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setPopupDelay(). Auto-raise behaviour adjustable.
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QWidget - new widget flag WStyle_ContextHelp that adds a
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context-help button to the window titlebar. The
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button triggers "What's This?"-help. The flag works
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with MS-Windows and future versions of X11 desktops
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such as KDE-2.0.
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- New function showFullScreen().
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- Enabling and disabling with setEnabled() propagates to
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children.
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- Changed isVisible(). It now returns whether a widget
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is mapped up to the toplevel widget (the previous
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implementation only returned isVisibleTo(parentWidget()).
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- New property 'backgroundOrigin' that lets a widget draw
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its background relatively to its parent widget's coordinate
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system. This makes pseudo-transparency possible, without
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the overhead of a real widget mask.
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****************************************************************************
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* New clases *
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****************************************************************************
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QCustomMenuItem - an abstract base class for custom menu items in
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popup menus.
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QFontDataBase - provides information about the available fonts. Not really
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a new class (it was used internally for the QFontDialog),
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but for the first time public API.
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QGuardedPtr - a template class that provides guarded pointers to
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QObjects.
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QIconView - a sophisticated new widget similar to QListView and
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QListBox. An iconview contains optinally labelled pixmap
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items that the user can select, drag around, rename, delete
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and more. The widget is highly optimized for speed and
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large amounts of icons.
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QInputDialog - a convenience dialog to get some simple input values from
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the user.
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QMetaProperty - stores meta data about properties. Part of the meta
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object system.
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QNetworkProtocol- base class for network protocols, provides
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a common API for network protocols.
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QUrl/
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QUrlOperator - provides an easy way to work with URLs.
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QVariant - a tagged union for the most common Qt data types.
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QValueStack - a value-based stack container.
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QWorkspace - provides a workspace that can contain decorated
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windows as opposed to frameless child widgets.
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QWorkspace makes it easy to implement a multi-document
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interface (MDI).
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QBig5Codec - provides support for the Big5 Chinese encoding.
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****************************************************************************
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* Changes which may affect runtime behaviour *
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****************************************************************************
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QDataStream / QPicture
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To accomodate for improved functionality, the stream serialization format
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of QString and QPen has changed in Qt 2.1. The format version
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number has been increased to 3. Compatibility has been kept, so
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applications built with this version of Qt are automatically able to read
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QDataStream and QPicture data generated by earlier Qt 2.x versions. But if
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your application needs to generate data that must be readable by
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applications that are compiled with earlier versions of Qt, you must use
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QDataStream::setVersion() (if the data contains QString or QPen objects).
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See the documentation of this function for further discussion.
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QPainter::drawPolygon()
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An outline is no longer drawn in the brush color if NoPen is specified.
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This matches the behaviour on Windows and ensures that the area
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painted in this case is the same pixels defined by a QRegion made
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from the polygon. To get the old behaviour, you can call
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painter.setPen(painter.brush()) prior to painting, which will also
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work on Windows.
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QPushButton::sizeHint()
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The size hint of auto-default push buttons has been slightly
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increased in order to reserve space for a default button indicator
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frame. This is necessary for a proper Motif or Platinum emulation. If
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this change destroys your geometry management, a auto-default button
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is probably not what you wanted anyway. Simply call
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setAutoDefault(FALSE) on these push buttons to get the old behaviour.
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QWidget
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Font and palette propagation has changed totally (from "almost
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brain-dead" to working). In practice, the only changes we've seen are
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to the better.
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QColor
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qRgb(r,g,b) now sets a default opaque alpha value of 0xff instead of
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a transparent 0x00 alpha value formerly. Use qRgb(r,g,b,a) if you do
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need a transparent alpha value.
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QPalette
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It turned out that the old normal/active/disabled set of color groups
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didn't work very well, except in the simplest hello-world examples,
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that it couldn't be fixed without nasty hacks, and that during five
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years nobody had discovered the bugs. So, we've dropped our broken
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attempt at Tcl/Tk L&F compatibility, and added support for Windows
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2000 and Macintosh L&F compatibility instead. The Macintosh and
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Windows 2000 looks differentiate between the window with focus and
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other windows. Qt calls the color groups QPalette::active() and
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QPalette::inactive() respectively.
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QGridLayout/QBoxLayout
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setMargin() now also works on child layouts. As a result of this
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change, the geometry() of a layout now includes margin(). This may
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effect programs that use QLayout::geometry().
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QToolButton
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The now adjustable auto-raise behaviour defaults to TRUE only when
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a button is used inside a QToolBar. That's usually what you want. If not,
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call setAutoRaise(FALSE).
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