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3. Usage

QtEZ is designed to be simple to use. In a perfect world there would be no need for a description of how to use it. Things being as they are however, we hope this document will help you get started with QtEZ.

3.1 General Use - Starting out

Every time QtEZ is started it looks for certain configuration files in the locations specified during the installation. If some of these files are missing or not where they are expected, you may not be able to open QtEZ and you should be notified of the reason by a dialog error message. Some errors are not as vital and though you are notified, QtEZ will still start. It would be to your benefit to make sure that you resolve all error messages before programming using QteEZ.

After opening QtEZ for the first time, assuming no error messages indicate that you have a misconfiguration, you will need to start a new application. In QtEZ, each application is referred to as a "project". It is suggested that you create a few test projects before using QtEZ to program in earnest. The following outlines the basic steps for creating a simple application with QtEZ.

    Create a new project.
        a) start QtEZ
        b) On the main menubar, select
            File
               --> New
                           --> Project

    Fill in the details in the text boxes provided and click "OK". These boxes allow you to set the project name, directory, your name and version information. Once you finish this dialog, you should see a blank dialog (you may know this as a window or a form if you are familiar with other visual development environments) ready to receive some widgets. To put a widget onto the dialog, simply select the desired widget by clicking on the icon on the toolbar, and then clicking on the dialog. You may click and drag on the dialog in order to resize the widget. After the widget is displayed, it may be moved by clicking on it and dragging it to its new position.

    After placing a few widgets on the dialog, you may run your new (albeit very simple) application by clicking on the "run" icon, or selecting run under the "Run" menu item of the main QtEZ menu / toolbar. This should compile and run your application. If for some reason this does not happen, try "running" the application again. There have been some installations where this has been required for the first "run" to succeed.
     

Below you see the main QtEZ menu / toolbar. The bottom most row of icons represent the widgets you can "paint" or "draw" onto the dialog(s). These are categorized by type. Depending on the version of QtEZ you use, there may be various widget sets available. The main set (shown) is a subset of the Qt widgets with text and label boxes, radio buttons, push buttons, list boxes, frames, scroll bars and others. note: this picture is from QtEZ v. 0.83, your version may look different.  

The top row of icons is a combination of functions, starting with standard and well understood functions such as "New", "Open" and "Save", and editing functions. Placing the mouse cursor over an icon will display a short help message describing its function. Toward the far right of this top row are a series of alignment icons. These will affect any widgets that you select on a dialog, as long as you have more than one selected. It is suggested that you place several widgets on a dialog, select them by clicking on them with the <Shift> key depressed, and test each alignment button, so as to become familiar with how these buttons work.
 


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