The QGraphicsLinearLayout class provides a horizontal or vertical layout for managing widgets in Graphics View.

The default orientation for a linear layout is Qt::Horizontal. You can choose a vertical orientation either by calling setOrientation(), or by passing Qt::Vertical to QGraphicsLinearLayout's constructor.

The most common way to use QGraphicsLinearLayout is to construct an object on the heap with no parent, add widgets and layouts by calling addItem(), and finally assign the layout to a widget by calling QGraphicsWidget::setLayout().

You can add widgets, layouts, stretches (addStretch(), insertStretch() or setStretchFactor()), and spacings (setItemSpacing()) to a linear layout. The layout takes ownership of the items. In some cases when the layout item also inherits from QGraphicsItem (such as QGraphicsWidget) there will be an ambiguity in ownership because the layout item belongs to two ownership hierarchies. See the documentation of QGraphicsLayoutItem::setOwnedByLayout() how to handle this. You can access each item in the layout by calling count() and itemAt(). Calling removeAt() or removeItem() will remove an item from the layout, without destroying it.

Size Hints and Size Policies in QGraphicsLinearLayout

QGraphicsLinearLayout respects each item's size hints and size policies, and when the layout contains more space than the items can fill, each item is arranged according to the layout's alignment for that item. You can set an alignment for each item by calling setAlignment(), and check the alignment for any item by calling alignment(). By default, items are aligned to the top left.

Spacing within QGraphicsLinearLayout

Between the items, the layout distributes some space. The actual amount of space depends on the managed widget's current style, but the common spacing is 4. You can also set your own spacing by calling setSpacing(), and get the current spacing value by calling spacing(). If you want to configure individual spacing for your items, you can call setItemSpacing().

Stretch Factor in QGraphicsLinearLayout

You can assign a stretch factor to each item to control how much space it will get compared to the other items. By default, two identical widgets arranged in a linear layout will have the same size, but if the first widget has a stretch factor of 1 and the second widget has a stretch factor of 2, the first widget will get 1/3 of the available space, and the second will get 2/3.

QGraphicsLinearLayout calculates the distribution of sizes by adding up the stretch factors of all items, and then dividing the available space accordingly. The default stretch factor is 0 for all items; a factor of 0 means the item does not have any defined stretch factor; effectively this is the same as setting the stretch factor to 1. The stretch factor only applies to the available space in the lengthwise direction of the layout (following its orientation). If you want to control both the item's horizontal and vertical stretch, you can use QGraphicsGridLayout instead.

QGraphicsLinearLayout Compared to Other Layouts

QGraphicsLinearLayout is very similar to QVBoxLayout and QHBoxLayout, but in contrast to these classes, it is used to manage QGraphicsWidget and QGraphicsLayout instead of QWidget and QLayout.

See also

QGraphicsGridLayout, QGraphicsWidget