How to append text to QPlainTextEdit without adding newline, and keep scroll at the bottom?
I need to append text to QPlainTextEdit without adding a newline to the text, but both methods appendPlainText() and appendHtml() adds actually new paragraph.
I can do that manually with QTextCursor:
QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(my_plain_text_edit->document());
text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
text_cursor.insertText("string to append. ");
That works, but I also need to keep scroll at bottom if it was at bottom before append.
I tried to copy logic from Qt's sources, but I stuck on it, because there actually QPlainTextEditPrivate class is used, and I can't find the way to do the same without it: say, I don't see method verticalOffset() in QPlainTextEdit.
Actually, these sources contain many weird (at the first look, at least) things, and I have no idea how to implement this.
Here's the source code of append(): http://code.qt.io/cgit/qt/qt.git/tree/src/gui/widgets/qplaintextedit.cpp#n2763
I'll just quote what I found here:
http://www.jcjc-dev.com/2013/03/qt-48-appending-text-to-qtextedit.html
We just need to move the cursor to the end of the contents in the QTextEdit and use insertPlainText. In my code, it looks like this:
myTextEdit->moveCursor (QTextCursor::End);
myTextEdit->insertPlainText (myString);
myTextEdit->moveCursor (QTextCursor::End);
As simple as that. If your application needs to keep the cursor where it was before appending the text, you can use the QTextCursor::position() and QTextCursor::setPosition() methods, or
just copying the cursor before modifying its position [QTextCursor QTextEdit::textCursor()] and then setting that as the cursor [void QTextEdit::setTextCursor(const QTextCursor & cursor)].
Here’s an example:
QTextCursor prev_cursor = myTextEdit->textCursor();
myTextEdit->moveCursor (QTextCursor::End);
myTextEdit->insertPlainText (myString);
myTextEdit->setTextCursor (&prev_cursor);
The current Answer was not an option for me. It was much simplier to add html with no new lines with the following method.
//logs is a QPlainTextEdit object
ui.logs->moveCursor(QTextCursor::End);
ui.logs->textCursor().insertHtml(out);
ui.logs->moveCursor(QTextCursor::End);
Ok, I'm not sure if my solution is actually "nice", but it seems to work for me: I just made new class QPlainTextEdit_My inherited from QPlainTextEdit, and added new methods appendPlainTextNoNL(), appendHtmlNoNL(), insertNL().
Please NOTE: read comments about params check_nl and check_br carefully, this is important! I spent several hours to figure out why is my widget so slow when I append text without new paragraphs.
/******************************************************************************************
* INCLUDED FILES
*****************************************************************************************/
#include "qplaintextedit_my.h"
#include <QScrollBar>
#include <QTextCursor>
#include <QStringList>
#include <QRegExp>
/******************************************************************************************
* CONSTRUCTOR, DESTRUCTOR
*****************************************************************************************/
QPlainTextEdit_My::QPlainTextEdit_My(QWidget *parent) :
QPlainTextEdit(parent)
{
}
QPlainTextEdit_My::QPlainTextEdit_My(const QString &text, QWidget *parent) :
QPlainTextEdit(text, parent)
{
}
/******************************************************************************************
* METHODS
*****************************************************************************************/
/* private */
/* protected */
/* public */
/**
* append html without adding new line (new paragraph)
*
* @param html html text to append
* @param check_nl if true, then text will be splitted by \n char,
* and each substring will be added as separate QTextBlock.
* NOTE: this important: if you set this to false,
* then you should append new blocks manually (say, by calling appendNL() )
* because one huge block will significantly slow down your widget.
*/
void QPlainTextEdit_My::appendPlainTextNoNL(const QString &text, bool check_nl)
{
QScrollBar *p_scroll_bar = this->verticalScrollBar();
bool bool_at_bottom = (p_scroll_bar->value() == p_scroll_bar->maximum());
if (!check_nl){
QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
text_cursor.insertText(text);
} else {
QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
text_cursor.beginEditBlock();
text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
QStringList string_list = text.split('\n');
for (int i = 0; i < string_list.size(); i++){
text_cursor.insertText(string_list.at(i));
if ((i + 1) < string_list.size()){
text_cursor.insertBlock();
}
}
text_cursor.endEditBlock();
}
if (bool_at_bottom){
p_scroll_bar->setValue(p_scroll_bar->maximum());
}
}
/**
* append html without adding new line (new paragraph)
*
* @param html html text to append
* @param check_br if true, then text will be splitted by "<br>" tag,
* and each substring will be added as separate QTextBlock.
* NOTE: this important: if you set this to false,
* then you should append new blocks manually (say, by calling appendNL() )
* because one huge block will significantly slow down your widget.
*/
void QPlainTextEdit_My::appendHtmlNoNL(const QString &html, bool check_br)
{
QScrollBar *p_scroll_bar = this->verticalScrollBar();
bool bool_at_bottom = (p_scroll_bar->value() == p_scroll_bar->maximum());
if (!check_br){
QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
text_cursor.insertHtml(html);
} else {
QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
text_cursor.beginEditBlock();
text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
QStringList string_list = html.split(QRegExp("\\<br\\s*\\/?\\>", Qt::CaseInsensitive));
for (int i = 0; i < string_list.size(); i++){
text_cursor.insertHtml( string_list.at(i) );
if ((i + 1) < string_list.size()){
text_cursor.insertBlock();
}
}
text_cursor.endEditBlock();
}
if (bool_at_bottom){
p_scroll_bar->setValue(p_scroll_bar->maximum());
}
}
/**
* Just insert new QTextBlock to the text.
* (in fact, adds new paragraph)
*/
void QPlainTextEdit_My::insertNL()
{
QScrollBar *p_scroll_bar = this->verticalScrollBar();
bool bool_at_bottom = (p_scroll_bar->value() == p_scroll_bar->maximum());
QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
text_cursor.insertBlock();
if (bool_at_bottom){
p_scroll_bar->setValue(p_scroll_bar->maximum());
}
}
I'm confused because in original code there are much more complicated calculations of atBottom:
const bool atBottom = q->isVisible()
&& (control->blockBoundingRect(document->lastBlock()).bottom() - verticalOffset()
<= viewport->rect().bottom());
and needScroll:
if (atBottom) {
const bool needScroll = !centerOnScroll
|| control->blockBoundingRect(document->lastBlock()).bottom() - verticalOffset()
> viewport->rect().bottom();
if (needScroll)
vbar->setValue(vbar->maximum());
}
But my easy solution seems to work too.
Like any string:
QTextEdit *myTextEdit = ui->textEdit;
myTextEdit->moveCursor (QTextCursor::End);
myTextEdit->insertPlainText (myString+"\n");
I tried it and it worked.