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# QWorkspace Class Reference
[workspace module]

The QWorkspace widget provides a workspace window that can contain decorated windows, e.g. for MDI. More...

`#include <qworkspace.h>`

Inherits QWidget.

List of all member functions.

## Public Members

- QWorkspace ( QWidget * parent = 0, const char * name = 0 )
- ~QWorkspace ()
- QWidget * activeWindow () const
- QWidgetList windowList () const
- bool scrollBarsEnabled () const
- void setScrollBarsEnabled ( bool enable )

## Public Slots

- void cascade ()
- void tile ()

## Signals

- void windowActivated ( QWidget * w )

## Properties

- bool scrollBarsEnabled - whether the workspace provides scrollbars

## Detailed Description

The QWorkspace widget provides a workspace window that can contain decorated windows, e.g. for MDI.

An MDI (multiple document interface) application has one main window with a menu bar. The central widget of this window is a workspace. The workspace itself contains zero, one or more document windows, each of which displays a document.

The workspace itself is an ordinary Qt widget. It has a standard constructor that takes a parent widget and an object name. The parent window is usually a QMainWindow, but it need not be.

Document windows (i.e. MDI windows) are also ordinary Qt widgets which have the workspace as parent widget. When you call show(), hide(), showMaximized(), setCaption(), etc. on a document window, it is shown, hidden, etc. with a frame, caption, icon and icon text, just as you'd expect. You can provide widget flags which will be used for the layout of the decoration or the behaviour of the widget itself.

To change the geometry of the MDI windows it is necessary to make the function calls to the parentWidget() of the widget, as this will move or resize the decorated window.

A document window becomes active when it gets the keyboard focus. You can activate it using setFocus(), and the user can activate it by moving focus in the normal ways. The workspace emits a signal windowActivated() when it detects the activation change, and the function activeWindow() always returns a pointer to the active document window.

The convenience function windowList() returns a list of all document windows. This is useful to create a popup menu "Windows" on the fly, for example.

QWorkspace provides two built-in layout strategies for child windows: cascade() and tile(). Both are slots so you can easily connect menu entries to them.

If you want your users to be able to work with document windows larger than the actual workspace, set the scrollBarsEnabled property to TRUE.

If the top-level window contains a menu bar and a document window is maximised, QWorkspace moves the document window's minimize, restore and close buttons from the document window's frame to the workspace window's menu bar. It then inserts a window operations menu at the extreme left of the menu bar.

See also Main Window and Related Classes and Organizers.

## Member Function Documentation

### QWorkspace::QWorkspace ( QWidget * parent = 0, const char * name = 0 )

Constructs a workspace with a parent and a name.

### QWorkspace::~QWorkspace ()

Destroys the workspace and frees any allocated resources.

### QWidget * QWorkspace::activeWindow () const

Returns the active window, or 0 if no window is active.

Example: mdi/application.cpp.

### void QWorkspace::cascade ()`[slot]`

Arranges all child windows in a cascade pattern.

See also tile().

Example: mdi/application.cpp.

### bool QWorkspace::scrollBarsEnabled () const

Returns TRUE if the workspace provides scrollbars; otherwise returns FALSE. See the "scrollBarsEnabled" property for details.

### void QWorkspace::setScrollBarsEnabled ( bool enable )

Sets whether the workspace provides scrollbars to enable. See the "scrollBarsEnabled" property for details.

### void QWorkspace::tile ()`[slot]`

Arranges all child windows in a tile pattern.

See also cascade().

Example: mdi/application.cpp.

### void QWorkspace::windowActivated ( QWidget * w )`[signal]`

This signal is emitted when the window widget w becomes active. Note that w can be null, and that more than one signal may be fired for one activation event.

See also activeWindow() and windowList().

### QWidgetList QWorkspace::windowList () const

Returns a list of all windows.

Example: mdi/application.cpp.

## Property Documentation

### bool scrollBarsEnabled

This property holds whether the workspace provides scrollbars.

If this property is set to TRUE, it is possible to resize child windows over the right or the bottom edge out of the visible area of the workspace. The workspace shows scrollbars to make it possible for the user to access those windows. If this property is set to FALSE, resizing windows out of the visible area of the workspace is not permitted.

Set this property's value with setScrollBarsEnabled() and get this property's value with scrollBarsEnabled().

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