KDDockWidgets is a Qt dock widget library written by KDAB, suitable for replacing QDockWidget and implementing advanced functionalities missing in Qt.

Although KDDockWidgets is ready to be used out of the box, it can also be seen as a framework to allow building very tailored custom docking systems. It tries to expose every internal widget and every knob for the app developer to tune.

Motivation

Throughout the years KDAB contributed and funded bug fixes and features to QDockWidget. Sadly, this was very painful. Each bug fix or feature took many days of implementation, and an equal number of days just to fix dozens of regressions.

QDockWidget mixes GUI code with logic with state, making it very hard to move forward with new features. Furthermore, our customers were getting more creative with their requests, so it was clear we needed a better docking framework.

You will find more information in these places:

Features

Provide advanced docking that QDockWidgets doesn't support
- Native window resize on Windows (allowing for Aero-snap even with custom title bar decorations)
- Arrow drop indicators for great drop precision
- Allow for totally different, user provided, drop indicator types
- Nesting dock widgets in a floating window and docking that group back to main window
- Docking to any main window, not only to the parent main window
- Docking to center of main window, or simply removing the concept of "central widget"
- Main window supporting detachable tabs in center widget
- Detaching arbitrary tabs from a tab bar into a dock area
- Supporting more than 1 main window
- Support for affinities, making some dock widgets only dockable on certain main windows
- Allow to hide TitleBar and just show tabs. Allows dragging via the tab bar.
- Exposing inner helper widgets so the user can customize them or provide his own
  - Customize tab widgets
  - Customize title bars
  - Customize window frames
  - Custom widget separators
Layouting engine honouring min/max size constraints and some size policies
PySide2 bindings
Clean codebase
- Not mixing GUI with state with logic with animations
- Great test coverage, even the gui and DnD operations are tested. 200 tests currently.
- Fuzzer for doing random testing and finding bugs
Lazy separator resize
Reordering tabs with mouse
Partial layout save/restore, affecting only a chosen sub-set
Double click on title bar to maximize
Double click on separator to distribute equally
Show close button on tabs
Allow to make a dock widget non-closable and/or non-dockable
Optional maximize button on the title bar

Roadmap

QtQuick support for v1.1
"Minimization bar" for v1.2

Trying out the examples

A full demo lives in examples/dockwidgets/, it showcasts most of the features. A simpler example lives in examples/minimal/, which might be more indicated to learn the API, as it's less overwelming than the full demo.

Open a terminal capable of building Qt5 applications. Make sure you have cmake, ninja, compiler, Qt, etc in PATH.

Adapt the instructions to suit your cmake generator and operating system. Build and install the KDDockWidgets framework:

 $ cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/where/to/install ../path/to/kddockwidgets
 $ cmake --build .
 $ cmake --build . --target install

Now build and run the example:

 $ cd path/to/kddockwidgets/examples/dockwidgets/
 $ cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/where/to/install
 $ cmake --build .
 $ ./kddockwidgets_example

The installation directory defaults to c:\KDAB\KDDockWidgets-<version> on Windows and /usr/local/KDAB/KDDockWidgets-<version> on non-Windows. You can change this location by passing the option -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/install/path to cmake.

Python Bindings

Make sure you have pyside2, shiboken2 and shiboken2-generator installed. As this time, you cannot get shiboken2-generator because the wheels are not on PyPi. To use the wheels do this: % pip3 install \ –index-url=http://download.qt.io/official_releases/QtForPython/ \ –trusted-host download.qt.io \ shiboken2 pyside2 shiboken2_generator

For more info visit https://doc.qt.io/qtforpython/shiboken2/gettingstarted.html

Once QtForPython is installed you are ready to generate the PySide bindings for KDDockwWidgets.

Next pass -DOPTION_BUILD_PYTHON_BINDINGS=ON to CMake, followed by the make command.

The bindings will be installed to the passed -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, which might require setting the PYTHONPATH env variable to point to that path when running applications. Alternatively, configure the bindings install location by passing -DPYTHON_BINDINGS_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages to CMake (adjust to the python path on your system).

To run the KDDW python example

 $ export PYTHONPATH=/kddw/install/path # Only if needed
 $ cd python/examples/
 $ rcc -g python -o rc_assets.py ../../examples/dockwidgets/resources_example.qrc
 $ python3 main.py

Supported Qt versions

KDDockWidgets requires Qt >= 5.9 (or >=5.12 if Python bindings are enabled). The QtQuick support will require Qt >= 5.15.

Licensing

Contact KDAB at info@.nosp@m.kdab.nosp@m..com to inquire about commercial licensing.

Get Involved

KDAB will happily accept external contributions; however, all contributions require a signed Copyright Assignment Agreement.

Contact info@.nosp@m.kdab.nosp@m..com for more information.

Please submit your contributions or issue reports from our GitHub space at https://github.com/KDAB/KDDockWidgets

About KDAB

KDDockWidgets is supported and maintained by Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB (KDAB).

The KDAB Group is the global No.1 software consultancy for Qt, C++ and OpenGL applications across desktop, embedded and mobile platforms.

The KDAB Group provides consulting and mentoring for developing Qt applications from scratch and in porting from all popular and legacy frameworks to Qt. We continue to help develop parts of Qt and are one of the major contributors to the Qt Project. We can give advanced or standard trainings anywhere around the globe on Qt as well as C++, OpenGL, 3D and more.

Please visit https://www.kdab.com to meet the people who write code like this.