How to add hyperlinks in Qt without QLabel?

Question

I have some labels and layouts nested inside a QWidget to build a part of a sidebar. Each QWidget is its own section and one component currently looks like this:

To my understanding, you can only set hyperlinks with QLabel, but I'm trying to get the whole area between the white lines clickable. This is including the icon and the whitespace. Is there any way to achieve this?

This got marked as a duplicate to the opposite of what I was asking, so I'd like to reiterate that I'm trying to implement a hyperlink without QLabel.

Sorry, my bad, it's 3 AM here. I saw QLabel and hyperlink and was like "oh not this again" :D — dtech, Aug 22 '17 at 00:18
Try `QDesktopServices::openUrl(yourURL)` in the mouse click handler. — dtech, Aug 22 '17 at 00:19

Josh · Answer 1 · 2017-08-22T00:33:58.160

I would just manually catch the SIGNAL for clicked() and use desktop services to open the url in code.

bool QDesktopServices::openUrl ( const QUrl & url ) [static]

Opens the given url in the appropriate Web browser for the user's desktop environment, and returns true if successful; otherwise returns false.

http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/signalsandslots.html

Using this type of syntax, or in the designer, you can also connect a signal to a slot.

connect(widgetThatRepresentsURL, SIGNAL(clicked()),
    handlerThatWillOpenTheURL, SLOT(clicked_on_url()));

For widgets that don't have a signal set up for clicked (or whatever event you are interested in), you can subclass the widget in question and reimplement...

void QWidget::mousePressEvent ( QMouseEvent * event )   [virtual protected]

Specifically for creating a signal, there is emit. I've used this in the past like the following

void Cell::focusInEvent(QFocusEvent *e)
{
  emit focus(this, true);
  QLineEdit::focusInEvent(e);
}

with the following in the header

signals:
  void focus(Cell *, bool);

you can create one or re-implement the event handler. i'll add to the answer for you. — Josh, Aug 22 '17 at 00:32

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 22 '17 at 00:48

You can easily have a widget open a link on click:

class Link : public QWidget {
  Q_OBJECT
  public:
  Link(QUrl url, QWidget p = nullptr) : QWidget(p), _url(url) {}
  QUrl _url;
  void mouseReleaseEvent(QMouseEvent *) { QDesktopServices::openUrl(_url); }
}

You can avoid any extra signals and connections, and have each link widget store its own link internally, the url can be set on construction and changed at any time. Not using signals and slots makes it easier to change the link too, without having to disconnect previous connections.

IMO going for a signals and slots solution is only justified when you want different arbitrary behavior. In this case you always want the same - to open a particular link, so you might as well hardcode that and go for an easier and more computationally efficient solution.

This worked perfectly! Didn't know you could use mouseReleaseEvent like that. Thanks :) — xkenshin14x, Aug 23 '17 at 02:22

How to add hyperlinks in Qt without QLabel?

2 Answers2