source: trunk/doc/src/declarative/qml-intro.qdoc

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/*!
\page qml-intro.html
\title Intro to Qt Quick

\section1 Overview

QML is a high level, scripted language. Its commands, more correctly \e elements,
leverage the power and efficiency of the Qt libraries to make easy to use
commands that perform intuitive functions. Draw a rectangle, display an image at
a position and so on. Behind these elements are complex C++ libraries that
efficiently perform the action. As with any graphical application, always
consider that this ability to easily build graphically rich applications means
that some care may be needed to prevent performance problems.

The language also allows more flexibility of these commands by using
Javascript rather than C++ to add new layers of logic to your application.
Javascript is easier to learn than C++ and can be embedded into the QML
files or imported from a separate file.

\bold{In QML the types of various 'objects' are referred to as \l {QML
Elements}{elements}}.

An element usually has various \e properties that help define the element. For
example, if we created an element called Circle then the radius of the circle
would be a property.


\section1 A First Look

The basic syntax of an \l{QML Elements}{element} is

\qml
SomeElement {
    id: myObject
    ... some other things here ...
}
\endqml

Here we are defining a new object. We specify its 'type' first as SomeElement.
Then within matching braces { ... } we specify the various parts of our 
element.

The \c id is a unique identifier for the element, it must start with a lower
case letter and only contain letters, numbers and underscores. It is this
particular object's name. If this SomeElement \l {QML Elements}{element} was
a Rectangle instead and it was one of many then the \e optional unique id
would allow us to manipulate each element individually.

Each visual element is ultimately based on, or inherits from, an element
called \l Item. \l Item has certain properties and actions that may be
useful. The properties have default values so you need only specify the
ones you will need.

Take a simple element such as a \l Rectangle. It has an \c id, we will call
it \e myRectangle, it has a \c width and a \c height. Imagine that we
want a rectangle that is 500 pixels by 400 pixels in the x and y directions
(horizontal by vertical).

We can implement this \l Rectangle with these properties this way

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/rectangle.qml document

This is a valid QML script. To run it, copy it and save it to a file, say
myexample.qml, and on the command line run the following command:

\code
qmlviewer myexample.qml
\endcode

On Mac OS X, open the "QMLViewer" application instead and open the
\c myexample.qml file, or run it from the command line:

\code
QMLViewer.app/Contents/MacOS/QMLViewer myexample.qml
\endcode

It will create a very boring rectangle in its own window.


\section1 Hello World!

We can now add some color and text to make a Hello World QML program.

\l Rectangle has the property \l{Rectangle::color}{color} to produce a
background color.

Text is handled by a different element called \l Text. We need to create a
\l Text object inside the \l Rectangle and set its \l{Text::}{text}
property to "Hello World!". So to set the text to "Hello world" and the
background colour to light gray,

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/hello-world1.qml document


\section1 Hello World Again

From now on we will not always show the import statement for Qt but it
should still be there when you create your QML scripts.

To make our Hello World example a little nicer set the position of the text
to be at pixel position x = 100, y = 100 within the displayed window. This
position belongs to the \l Text element so we set the position inside its
definition. Note that we separate different QML statements on the same line
with a semi-colon, or we could have simply put each statement on a new line

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/hello-world2.qml updated text

Not only did we reposition the text, but the text was altered by adding
HTML tags to change the font size. The text color was also changed from the
default black to dark green by using a standard string for the color's SVG
name.

We could also have used a hexadecimal string for the RGB (red-green-blue, as
#rrggbb) values of the color similar to the method used in HTML. For
example, mostly blue with a green tint,

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/hello-world3.qml updated text

All of these changes occurred within the \l Text object which is the scope
of these property changes.

Other objects may use the information but it belongs to the element where
the property has been defined.


\section1 Images

To add an image to our little application we use the \l Image element. An
\l Image uses a path to an image file, and has properties to control
the aspect ratio, the image size, to tile the area amongst others. The
source of the image, the path to the file, is a URL. Therefore the file can
be local: \e {mydir/myimage1.png}. Or it can be remote:
\e {"http://www.example.com/images/myimage1.png"}.

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/hello-world4.qml added an image

This displays the image, as we would expect, at the top left of the window.
The position of the default x = 0, y = 0 coordinate. The example here uses
a PNG file, but it could have been one of various supported formats,
including JPG and GIF.

Let us reposition the image and enlarge it. Place it at the same 'x' offset
as the "Hello world again" text, but put it another 50 pixels below the
text, also make it 150 by 150 pixels in size,

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/hello-world5.qml positioning the image

Adding the Hello World example, with the text and the image example we can
write a simple piece of QML that starts to look a bit better.

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/hello-world5.qml document

The result is still quite simple

\image qml-intro-helloa.png


\section1 Anchors: Aligning Elements

Using absolute positioning, such as saying x = 100 and y = 150, works well
until the user or developer stretches or increases the size of the window.
Then the positions need to be recalculated. What would be nice would be a
relative means of positioning of objects in a window or rectangle. For
example, we want to place an image at the bottom of a rectangle, we would
like to specify the image's location as the 'bottom of the window', not a
specific coordinate. We can do this with the anchors property, which
objects inherit from Item.

The anchors property is really a property group. It is a collection of
related properties. It has properties within it which can be used by means
of the dot notation.

The dot notation uses object \c{id}s and property names to use a particular
object or property. Say I have a rectangle r1, which contains a rectangle
r2, which contains an Item item1, which has an 'x' property I want to
change. I just use the dot notation to identify it: r1.r2.item1.x

If we want to position an image at the bottom of the rectangle it is
inside. I have to specify that the bottom of the image is also at the
bottom of the rectangle

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/anchors1.qml document

This places the logo at the bottom left of the window.

\image qml-intro-anchors1.png  "A simple anchor"

We would like it centered and not touching the bottom of the window, for
aesthetic reasons. For the centering we use the horizontalCenter property,
and to prevent the touching of the image to the bottom of the rectangle,
the bottomMargin property is used. So the new actions for the script are

    \list
    \o set the bottom of the image (anchors.bottom) to be the bottom of the window
    \o move the image to be in the horizontal center of the window
    \o set a margin of 10 pixels so that the image does not touch the bottom window border
    \endlist

Encoded into QML the script becomes

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/anchors2.qml document

Run this and resize the window. You will see that now the position of the
image adjusts during the resize.

\image qml-intro-anchors2.png  "Image Centered at the Bottom"

You can also add another object say a block of descriptive text and place
it above or below the image or to the side. This code places some text just
above the image

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/anchors3.qml adding some text

\image qml-intro-anchors3.png

\note \e anchors is a property group, to be used within the object. When
referencing these properties from another object we use the property
directly, instead of saying:

\qml
myRectangle.anchors.top  // Wrong
\endqml

we use

\qml
myRectangle.top         // Correct
\endqml


\section1 Transformations

We can transform a graphical object to get additional effects. Rotate a
piece of text by 180 degrees to display upside-down text. Rotate an image
by 90 degrees to lay it on its side. These transformations require
additional information.

For rotation, the additional information includes: the origin relative to
the object being rotated, the axis of rotation, and the angle in degrees to
rotate the image through in a clockwise direction. The axis does not have
to be the z-axis, the line between your eyes and the image, it could be
along the vertical y-axis or the horizontal x-axis. We have three
dimensions to play with. For simplicity in this example we will rotate
about the z-axis by 90 degrees in a negative direction, anti-clockwise.

Rotation of text was also suggested. It could also be useful to scale the
text. We can do both. The \l {Item::transform}{transform} property is a
\e list of \l Transform elements, so using the list syntax

\qml
myList: [ listElement1, listElement2, ... } ]
\endqml

we can produce a list of transformations.

The text will be rotated by 45 degrees anti-clockwise and scaled 
vertically by a factor of 1.5 and by 1.2 horizontally.

Using the example above as the basis for this we have,

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/transformations1.qml document

The code block in \c image1 starting with \c transform specifies that the
\l {Item::transform}{transform} property will be a Rotation through -90
degrees, which is anti-clockwise, about the z-axis running through the
center of the image at (75,75), since the image is 150 x 150 pixels.

The other transformation available is \l Translate. This produces a change
in position of the item.

\note In a list of transformations the order of the transformations is
important. In the above example try swapping around the Scale transform with
the Rotation transform, remember to remove or add the comma. The results are
acceptable for our little test but not the same.


\section1 Animations

Animation in QML is done by animating properties of objects. Properties
that are numbers, colors, Rectangles, points and directions. In QML these
are \l {QML Basic Types} named as real, int, color, rect, point, size, and
vector3d. There are a number of different ways to do animation. Here we
will look at a few of them.

\section2 Number Animation

Previously we have used a rotation transformation to change the orientation
of an image. We could easily animate this rotation so that instead of a
straight rotation counter-clockwise of 90 degrees we could rotate the image
through a full 360 degrees in an animation. The axis of rotation wont
change, the position of the center of the image will not change, only the
angle will change. Therefore, a NumberAnimation of a rotation's angle should
be enough for the task. If we wish for a simple rotation about the center
of the image then we can use the \c rotation property that is inherited
from \l Item. The rotation property is a real number that specifies the
angle in a clockwise direction for the rotation of the object. Here is the
code for our animated rotating image.

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/number-animation1.qml document

The \c {transformOrigin: Item.Center} is redundant since this is the default
axis of rotation anyway. But if you change \c Center to \c BottomRight you
will see an interesting variation.

Also if instead the \l Rotation transformation had been used then we would have
more control over the various parameters. We could vary the axis, to be not
just a different offset from the z-axis but along the y-axis, x-axis or
combination. For example, if the task had been to animate the rotation
about the y-axis passing through the center of the image then the following
code would do it.

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/number-animation2.qml document

Here there is a rectangle 600 by 400 pixels. Placed within that rectangle
is an image 100 by 100 pixels. It is rotated about the center of the image
about the y-axis so that it looks as if it is rotating about an invisible
vertical string holding it up. The time it takes to complete the rotation is 3
seconds (3,000 milliseconds). The NumberAnimation is applied to the angle
taking it from 0 (no change) to 360 degrees, back where it started.
Strictly speaking it isn't necessary to go from 0 to 360 since the same
location is duplicated, but it makes it easier to read in this example and
it has no visible effect on the animation. The number of loops that the
animation will execute is set to \c {Animation.Infinite} which means that the
animation is in an endless loop.

To see an interesting variation. Change the axis to \c {axis { x:1; y:1; z:1
}}. This is a line coming from the center of the image downwards to the
right and out of the screen. Although the change is simple the rotation
seems complex.

\section2 Sequential Animation

For a more complex animation we will need two images. The first image will
be placed at the center of a window (Rectangle) and the second image will
be at the upper left of the window. The animation will move the second
image from the top left of the window to the bottom right. In doing so we
will be animating the position and the size of the image.

First create two images

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/sequential-animation1.qml document

We will add to 'image1' a SequentialAnimation from x = 20 to the target of
x = 450. The 'from' values will be used because we will be repeating the
animation, so the object needs to know where the original position is, both
x and y. The SequentialAnimation of x will set it to repeat by indicating
that the number of animation loops is infinite, meaning that the 'loop'
counter will be set to a value Animation.Infinite that indicates an endless
cycle. Also there will be a NumberAnimation to vary the numeric property
between the x values and over a given duration. After the NumberAnimation
there will be a PauseAnimation that will pause the animation for 500
milliseconds (half a second) simply for the visual effect.

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/sequential-animation2.qml adding a sequential animation

A similar block of code is written for the animation of the 'y' value of
the position.

We will also animate the scale of the object, so as it goes from top left
to bottom right of the window it will become smaller until about midway,
and then become larger. To complete the animation we will set the 'z'
values of the images. 'z' is the stacking order, the z-axis effectively
points out from the screen to your eyes with the default value of 'z' being
0. So if we set the Rectangle to have z with value zero, just to be sure,
and image1 to 1 and image2 to 2 then image2 will be in the foreground and
image1 in the background. When image1 passes image2 it will pass behind it.
The completed code looks like

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/sequential-animation3.qml document

The \c {easing.type} has many options, expressed as a string. It specifies the
kind of equation that describes the acceleration of the property value, not
necessarily position, over time.

For example, \e InOutQuad means that at the start and the end of the animation the
'velocity' is low but the acceleration or deceleration is high. Much like a car
accelerating from stop, and decelerating to stop at the end of a journey,
with the maximum speed being in the middle. Examine the \l {PropertyAnimation::easing.type}
{easing} documentation and the various graphs that show the effect. The horizontal
axis, 'progress', can be thought of as time. The vertical axis is the value
of the particular property.

In discussing animation we need to describe three objects: State, MouseArea
and Signals. Although independent of the animation elements, animation
delivers some of the best examples that illustrate these new elements.



\section2 Animation Summary

\table
    \header
        \o Name
        \o Description
    \row
        \o PropertyAnimation
        \o a property value on a target object is varied to a specified value over a given time.

    \row
        \o NumberAnimation
        \o animate a numeric property from one value to another over a given time.

    \row
        \o PauseAnimation
        \o results in the task waiting for the specified duration, in milliseconds.

    \row
        \o SequentialAnimation
        \o allows us to list in order the animation events we want to occur, first A then B then C and so on.

    \row
        \o ParallelAnimation
        \o enables us to run different animations at the same time instead of sequentially.

\endtable


\section1 Using States

A state is a defined set of values in the configuration of an object and
often depends on the previous state. For example, a glass could be in a
state we call 'HalfFull' if it is being filled with a liquid and has
reached half of its total capacity. We could also have a state called
HalfEmpty which is the state that occurs when the amount of liquid drops to
half of the glass's capacity. Both states represent the same amount of
liquid, but we consider them different. Likewise, states in a program
represent not just values but may include how the current values were
reached.

When a state changes a \e transition occurs. This is an opportunity to make
changes or take actions that depend on the movement to the new state. For
example, if we had a scene in the country where the state variable has two
states "daylight" and "night". Then when the state changes to "night" at
this transition the sky would be made dark, stars would be shown, the
countryside would be darkened. And when the state changes to "daylight" the
opposite changes would be made: the sky is now blue, the scenery is green,
there is a sun in the sky.

Here is a simple QML program that shows the change of state in the above
example. We have two rectangles, the top one is the 'sky' and the bottom
one is the 'ground'. We will animate the change from daylight to night.
There will be two states, but we only need to define one since 'daylight'
will be the default state. We will just go to 'night' by clicking and
holding the left mouse button down, releasing the mouse button will reverse
the process

\snippet doc/src/snippets/declarative/qml-intro/states1.qml document

Several new things appear in this sample. Firstly, we use a \l MouseArea
element to detect mouse clicks in the \e mainRectangle. Secondly, we use
the list notation [ thing1 , thing2, ... ] to build a list of states and a
list of transitions.

\l MouseArea defines a region that will respond to mouse clicks. In this case
we are only concerned with when the mouse is pressed or not pressed, not
the particular button or other details. The area of the MouseArea is the
entire main window, mainRectangle, so that clicking anywhere in this region
will start the animation. Since we are using the 'pressed' mouse state,
then the animation will move from 'daylight' to 'night' only while the mouse
button remains pressed.

When the button is released the 'daylight' state is entered and the
transition from 'night' to 'daylight' is triggered causing the animation to
run. The transition specifies the duration in milliseconds of the
ColorAnimation, while the state specifies the color of the new state.

The PropertyChanges command is the way that we nominate which properties
will change in a change of state, and what new value the property will
take. Since, for example, we want the 'sky' region to turn to dark blue and
the 'ground' region to turn to black for the 'night' state, then the
rectangles for those regions are the 'target' and the property in the target
is 'color'.


\section1 Signals

Signals are simply events that can be hooked up to actions we want performed.
In QML they are usually preceded by the word 'on', for example in the animation
using a MouseArea the signal was \l {MouseArea::onPressed}{onPressed}. If
you look at the C++ documentation you will see a lot of talk about
\l {Signals & Slots}{Signals and Slots}. Signals are connected to Slots. The
signal represents an event and the Slot is the function that does something
based on that event. You can also have Signals connected to other Signals, so
that one Signal (event) triggers another Signal (event), and so forth. It is
nice to know this is what happens beneath the QML layer but not essential for
using QML.

Most elements do not have Signals associated with them. However, a few like
the \l Audio element have many signals. Some of the \l Audio signals are
used to represent events such as when the audio is stopped, play is pressed,
paused, and reaching the end of the media. They allow the developer to connect,
 for example, the press of a user interface button (perhaps a MouseArea) to
 some QML that will handle this event.


\section1 Analyzing An Example: Dial Control

In the Qt \e {examples/declarative/ui-components} folder you will find a folder
\e {dialcontrol} which contains the \e dialcontrol example.

\image qml-dial.png  "QML Dial example with Slider"

In essence this small application has a sliding bar that you can slide using
a mouse, and a graphical dial that responds to the position of the slider.

The code for the example is in two parts: Dial.qml and dialcontrol.qml.

\e {Dial.qml} can be found in the \e content sub-directory. It defines a \c Dial
component similar to an odometer. Eventually, the example will hook up a slider
component so that moving the slider will change the position of a needle on the
dial.

The code for the \c Dial, identified by the name of the file, contains four images
in overlapping order: the background (numbers and divisions), the shadow of the
needle, the needle itself, and finally the 'glass' overlay (containing
transparent layers).

The \c needle_shadow.png image has a \l Rotation assigned to the \e transform
attribute of the \l Image. The rotation is set to match the angle of the needle
image angle value \e {needleRotation.angle}. Both the needle and the
needle_shadow have the same default \e x and \e y values but the rotation origin
for the needle is slightly different so that a shadow will be evident as the
needle moves.

\snippet examples/declarative/ui-components/dialcontrol/content/Dial.qml  needle_shadow

And the needle

\snippet examples/declarative/ui-components/dialcontrol/content/Dial.qml  needle

The final image is the overlay which simply has a position defined.

\snippet examples/declarative/ui-components/dialcontrol/content/Dial.qml  overlay

\e {dialcontrol.qml} in the \e {examples/declarative/ui-components/dialcontrol} directory is the
main file of the example. It defines the visual environment that the Dial
will fit into. Because the \e Dial component and the images live in the \e
content sub-directory we will have to import this into \e dialcontrol.qml. So the
start of the file looks like

\snippet examples/declarative/ui-components/dialcontrol/dialcontrol.qml  imports

The visual space is bound by a 300 by 300 pixel \l Rectangle which is given
a gray color. Inside this rectangle is our component \e Dial and a \l Rectangle.
Inside the rectangle called 'container' is another rectangle with the
interesting name 'slider'.

\snippet examples/declarative/ui-components/dialcontrol/dialcontrol.qml  0

The Dial component, named 'dial, is \e anchored to the center of the main
rectangle. The \c value attribute of 'dial' is set to a value based on the
'slider' horizontal position and the 'container' width. So changes to the
'slider' position will change the Dial \c value which is used in Dial to compute
the rotation of the needle image. Notice this piece of code in Dial where
the change in \c value modifies the position of the needle.

\snippet examples/declarative/ui-components/dialcontrol/content/Dial.qml  needle angle

This is part of the \c needleRotation that rotates the needle and causes the
rotation of its shadow. \l SpringAnimation is an element that modifies the value
of that rotation \e angle and mimics the oscillatory behavior of a spring,
with the appropriate \e spring constant to control the acceleration and the \e
damping to control how quickly the effect dies away.

The 'container' is light gray with a color gradient defined using
\l GradientStop. The gradient is applied vertically. If you need a horizontal
gradient then you could apply the vertical gradient and then rotate the item
by 90 degrees.

The 'slider' is dark gray and also has a vertical color gradient. The most
important thing about the 'slider' is that it has a MouseArea defined, which
specifies a \c {drag.target} on itself along the X-axis. With minimum
and maximum values on the X-axis defined. So we can click on the 'slider' and
drag it left and right within the confines of the 'container'. The motion of
the 'slider' will then change the \c value attribute in \e Dial as discussed
already.

Also notice the use of a \c radius value for a rectangle. This produces rounded
corners. That is how the 'container' and 'slider' are displayed with a
pleasant rounded look.



*/