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# Style Plugin Example

Files:

- tools/styleplugin/plugin/simplestyle.cpp
- tools/styleplugin/plugin/simplestyle.h
- tools/styleplugin/plugin/simplestyleplugin.cpp
- tools/styleplugin/plugin/simplestyleplugin.h
- tools/styleplugin/stylewindow/stylewindow.cpp
- tools/styleplugin/stylewindow/stylewindow.h
- tools/styleplugin/stylewindow/main.cpp

This example shows how to create a plugin that extends Qt with a new GUI look and feel.

A plugin in Qt is a class stored in a shared library that can be loaded by a QPluginLoader at run-time. When you create plugins in Qt, they either extend a Qt application or Qt itself. Writing a plugin that extends Qt itself is achieved by inheriting one of the plugin base classes, reimplementing functions from that class, and adding a macro. In this example we extend Qt by adding a new GUI look and feel (i.e., making a new QStyle available). A high-level introduction to plugins is given in the plugin overview document.

Plugins that provide new styles inherit the QStylePlugin base class. Style plugins are loaded by Qt and made available through QStyleFactory; we will look at this later. We have implemented `SimpleStylePlugin`, which provides `SimpleStyle`. The new style inherits QWindowsStyle and contributes to widget styling by drawing button backgrounds in red - not a major contribution, but it still makes a new style. We test the plugin with `StyleWindow`, in which we display a QPushButton.

The `SimpleStyle` and `StyleWindow` classes do not contain any plugin specific functionality and their implementations are trivial; we will therefore leap past them and head on to the `SimpleStylePlugin` and the `main()` function. After we have looked at that, we examine the plugin's profile.

## SimpleStylePlugin Class Definition

`SimpleStylePlugin` inherits QStylePlugin and is the plugin class.

     class SimpleStylePlugin : public QStylePlugin
     {
         Q_OBJECT

     public:
         SimpleStylePlugin() {};

         QStringList keys() const;
         QStyle *create(const QString &key);
     };

`keys()` returns a list of style names that this plugin can create, while `create()` takes such a string and returns the QStyle corresponding to the key. Both functions are pure virtual functions reimplemented from QStylePlugin. When an application requests an instance of the `SimpleStyle` style, which this plugin creates, Qt will create it with this plugin.

## SimpleStylePlugin Class Implementation

Here is the implementation of `keys()`:

     QStringList SimpleStylePlugin::keys() const
     {
         return QStringList() << "SimpleStyle";
     }

Since this plugin only supports one style, we return a QStringList with the class name of that style.

Here is the `create()` function:

     QStyle *SimpleStylePlugin::create(const QString &key)
     {
         if (key.toLower() == "simplestyle")
             return new SimpleStyle;
         return 0;
     }

Note that the key for style plugins are case insensitive. The case sensitivity varies from plugin to plugin, so you need to check this when implementing new plugins.

## The `main()` function

     int main(int argv, char *args[])
     {
         QApplication app(argv, args);
         QApplication::setStyle(QStyleFactory::create("simplestyle"));

         StyleWindow window;
         window.resize(200, 50);
         window.show();

         return app.exec();
     }

Qt loads the available style plugins when the QApplication object is initialized. The QStyleFactory class knows about all styles and produces them with create() (it is a wrapper around all the style plugins).

## The Simple Style Plugin Profile

The `SimpleStylePlugin` lives in its own directory and have its own profile:

     TEMPLATE        = lib
     CONFIG         += plugin
     HEADERS         = simplestyle.h \
                       simplestyleplugin.h
     SOURCES         = simplestyle.cpp \
                       simplestyleplugin.cpp
     TARGET          = simplestyleplugin

In the plugin profile we need to set the lib template as we are building a shared library instead of an executable. We must also set the config to plugin. We set the library to be stored in the styles folder under stylewindow because this is a path in which Qt will search for style plugins.

## Related articles and examples

In addition to the plugin overview document, we have other examples and articles that concern plugins.

In the Qt Quarterly article Writing a Qt Image Plugin, you can see a more complex example of a plugin that extend Qt. In the article the implementation of a plugin that provides Qt with the possibility to support a custom image format is examined step-by-step. In the echo plugin example we show how to implement plugins that extends Qt applications rather than Qt itself, which is the case with the style plugin of this example. The plug & paint example shows how to implement a static plugin as well as being a more involved example on plugins that extend applications.