PointHandler QML Type

Handler for reacting to a single touchpoint. More...

Properties

Detailed Description

\inheritsSinglePointHandler \inqmlmodule QtQuick \ingroup qtquick-input-handlers

PointHandler can be used to show feedback about a touchpoint or the mouse position, or to otherwise react to pointer events.

When a press event occurs, each instance of PointHandler chooses a single point which is not yet "taken" at that moment: if the press occurs within the bounds of the PointerHandler::parent, and no sibling PointHandler within the same PointerHandler::parent has yet acquired a passive grab on that point, and if the other constraints such as acceptedButtons, acceptedDevices etc. are satisfied, it's eligible, and the PointHandler then acquires a passive grab. In this way, the PointerHandler::parent acts like an exclusive group: there can be multiple instances of PointHandler, and the set of pressed touchpoints will be distributed among them. Each PointHandler which has chosen a point to track has its active property true. It then continues to track its chosen point until release: the properties of the point will be kept up-to-date. Any Item can bind to these properties, and thereby follow the point's movements.

By being only a passive grabber, it has the ability to keep independent oversight of all movements. The passive grab cannot be stolen or overridden even when other gestures are detected and exclusive grabs occur.

If your goal is orthogonal surveillance of eventpoints, an older alternative was QObject::installEventFilter(), but that has never been a built-in QtQuick feature: it requires some C++ code, such as a QQuickItem subclass. PointHandler is more efficient than that, because only pointer events will be delivered to it, during the course of normal event delivery in QQuickWindow; whereas an event filter needs to filter all QEvents of all types, and thus sets itself up as a potential event delivery bottleneck.

One possible use case is to add this handler to a transparent Item which is on top of the rest of the scene (by having a high z value), so that when a point is freshly pressed, it will be delivered to that Item and its handlers first, providing the opportunity to take the passive grab as early as possible. Such an item (like a pane of glass over the whole UI) can be a convenient parent for other Items which visualize the kind of reactive feedback which must always be on top; and likewise it can be the parent for popups, popovers, dialogs and so on. If it will be used in that way, it can be helpful for your main.cpp to use QQmlContext::setContextProperty() to make the "glass pane" accessible by ID to the entire UI, so that other Items and PointHandlers can be reparented to it.

 import QtQuick

 Window {
     width: 480
     height: 320
     visible: true

     Item {
         id: glassPane
         z: 10000
         anchors.fill: parent

         PointHandler {
             id: handler
             acceptedDevices: PointerDevice.TouchScreen | PointerDevice.TouchPad
             target: Rectangle {
                 parent: glassPane
                 color: "red"
                 visible: handler.active
                 x: handler.point.position.x - width / 2
                 y: handler.point.position.y - height / 2
                 width: 20; height: width; radius: width / 2
             }
         }
     }
 }

Like all input handlers, a PointHandler has a target property, which may be used as a convenient place to put a point-tracking Item; but PointHandler will not automatically manipulate the target item in any way. You need to use bindings to make it react to the point.

Note: On macOS, PointHandler does not react to multiple fingers on the trackpad by default, although it does react to a pressed point (mouse position). That is because macOS can provide either native gesture recognition, or raw touchpoints, but not both. We prefer to use the native gesture event in PinchHandler, so we do not want to disable it by enabling touch. However MultiPointTouchArea does enable touch, thus disabling native gesture recognition within the entire window; so it's an alternative if you only want to react to all the touchpoints but do not require the smooth native-gesture experience.

See also MultiPointTouchArea, HoverHandler, and Qt Quick Examples - Pointer Handlers.

Property Documentation

acceptedButtons : flags

The mouse buttons that can activate this PointHandler.

By default, this property is set to Qt.LeftButton. It can be set to an OR combination of mouse buttons, and will ignore events in which other buttons are pressed or held.

 import QtQuick

 Item {
     width: 480; height: 320

     Rectangle {
         color: handler.active ? "tomato" : "wheat"
         x: handler.point.position.x - width / 2
         y: handler.point.position.y - height / 2
         width: 20; height: width; radius: width / 2
     }

     PointHandler {
         id: handler
         acceptedButtons: Qt.MiddleButton | Qt.RightButton
     }
 }

Note: On a touchscreen, there are no buttons, so this property does not prevent PointHandler from reacting to touchpoints.


acceptedDevices : flags

The types of pointing devices that can activate this PointHandler.

By default, this property is set to PointerDevice.AllDevices. If you set it to an OR combination of device types, it will ignore events from non-matching devices:

 PointHandler {
     id: handler
     acceptedDevices: PointerDevice.TouchScreen | PointerDevice.TouchPad
     target: Rectangle {
         parent: glassPane
         color: "red"
         visible: handler.active
         x: handler.point.position.x - width / 2
         y: handler.point.position.y - height / 2
         width: 20; height: width; radius: width / 2
     }
 }

acceptedModifiers : flags

If this property is set, PointHandler requires the given keyboard modifiers to be pressed in order to react to PointerEvents, and otherwise ignores them.

If this property is set to Qt.KeyboardModifierMask (the default value), then PointHandler ignores the modifier keys.

For example, an Item could have two handlers, one of which is enabled only if the required keyboard modifier is pressed:

 import QtQuick

 Item {
     id: feedbackPane
     width: 480; height: 320

     PointHandler {
         id: control
         acceptedModifiers: Qt.ControlModifier
         cursorShape: Qt.PointingHandCursor
         target: Rectangle {
             parent: feedbackPane
             color: control.active ? "indianred" : "khaki"
             x: control.point.position.x - width / 2
             y: control.point.position.y - height / 2
             width: 20; height: width; radius: width / 2
         }
     }

     PointHandler {
         id: shift
         acceptedModifiers: Qt.ShiftModifier | Qt.MetaModifier
         cursorShape: Qt.CrossCursor
         target: Rectangle {
             parent: feedbackPane
             color: shift.active ? "darkslateblue" : "lightseagreen"
             x: shift.point.position.x - width / 2
             y: shift.point.position.y - height / 2
             width: 30; height: width; radius: width / 2
         }
     }
 }

If you set acceptedModifiers to an OR combination of modifier keys, it means all of those modifiers must be pressed to activate the handler.

The available modifiers are as follows:

ConstantDescription
NoModifierNo modifier key is allowed.
ShiftModifierA Shift key on the keyboard must be pressed.
ControlModifierA Ctrl key on the keyboard must be pressed.
AltModifierAn Alt key on the keyboard must be pressed.
MetaModifierA Meta key on the keyboard must be pressed.
KeypadModifierA keypad button must be pressed.
GroupSwitchModifierX11 only (unless activated on Windows by a command line argument). A Mode_switch key on the keyboard must be pressed.
KeyboardModifierMaskThe handler does not care which modifiers are pressed.

See also Qt::KeyboardModifier.


acceptedPointerTypes : flags

The types of pointing instruments (finger, stylus, eraser, etc.) that can activate this PointHandler.

By default, this property is set to PointerDevice.AllPointerTypes. If you set it to an OR combination of device types, it will ignore events from non-matching devices:

 import QtQuick

 Canvas {
     id: canvas
     width: 800
     height: 600
     antialiasing: true
     renderTarget: Canvas.FramebufferObject
     property var points: []
     onPaint: {
         if (points.length < 2)
             return
         var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');
         ctx.save()
         ctx.strokeStyle = stylusHandler.active ? "blue" : "white"
         ctx.lineCap = "round"
         ctx.beginPath()
         ctx.moveTo(points[0].x, points[0].y)
         for (var i = 1; i < points.length; i++)
             ctx.lineTo(points[i].x, points[i].y)
         ctx.lineWidth = 3
         ctx.stroke()
         points = points.slice(points.length - 2, 1)
         ctx.restore()
     }

     PointHandler {
         id: stylusHandler
         acceptedPointerTypes: PointerDevice.Pen
         onPointChanged: {
             canvas.points.push(point.position)
             canvas.requestPaint()
         }
     }

     PointHandler {
         id: eraserHandler
         acceptedPointerTypes: PointerDevice.Eraser
         onPointChanged: {
             canvas.points.push(point.position)
             canvas.requestPaint()
         }
     }

     Rectangle {
         width: 10; height: 10
         color: stylusHandler.active ? "green" : eraserHandler.active ? "red" : "beige"
     }
 }

The Qt Quick Examples - Pointer Handlers includes a more complex example for drawing on a Canvas with a graphics tablet.


[read-only] active : bool

\readonly

This holds true whenever the constraints are satisfied and this PointHandler is reacting. This means that it is keeping its properties up-to-date according to the movements of the eventPoints that satisfy the constraints.


dragThreshold : flags

\internal

This property is not used in PointHandler.


margin : real

The margin beyond the bounds of the parent item within which an eventPoint can activate this handler.

The default value is 0.

 import QtQuick

 Item {
     width: 480; height: 320

     Rectangle {
         anchors.fill: handlingContainer
         anchors.margins: -handler.margin
         color: "beige"
     }

     Rectangle {
         id: handlingContainer
         width: 200; height: 200
         anchors.centerIn: parent
         border.color: "green"
         color: handler.active ? "lightsteelblue" : "khaki"

         Text {
             text: "X"
             x: handler.point.position.x - width / 2
             y: handler.point.position.y - height / 2
             visible: handler.active
         }

         PointHandler {
             id: handler
             margin: 30
         }
     }

 }

target : real

A property that can conveniently hold an Item to be manipulated or to show feedback. Unlike other Pointer Handlers, PointHandler does not do anything with the target on its own: you usually need to create reactive bindings to properties such as SinglePointHandler::point and PointHandler::active. If you declare an Item instance here, you need to explicitly set its parent, because PointHandler is not an Item.

By default, it is the same as the parent, the Item within which the handler is declared.