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1// Copyright (C) 2021 The Qt Company Ltd.
2// SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-Qt-Commercial OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only
3
4/*!
5\page qtquick-input-focus.html
6\title Keyboard Focus in Qt Quick
7\brief handling keyboard focus
8
9When a key is pressed or released, a key event is generated and delivered to the
10focused Qt Quick \l Item. To facilitate the construction of reusable components
11and to address some of the cases unique to fluid user interfaces, the Qt Quick items add a
12scope based extension to Qt's traditional keyboard focus model.
13
14\section1 Key Handling Overview
15
16When the user presses or releases a key, the following occurs:
17\list 1
18\li Qt receives the key action and generates a key event.
19\li If a \l QQuickWindow is the \l{QGuiApplication::focusWindow()}{focus window}
20of the application, the key event is delivered to it.
21\li The key event is delivered by the scene to the \l Item with
22\e {active focus}. If no item has active focus, the key event is ignored.
23\li If the \l QQuickItem with active focus accepts the key event, propagation
24stops. Otherwise the event is sent to the Item's parent until
25the event is accepted, or the root item is reached.
26
27If the \c {Rectangle} type in the following example has active focus and the \c A key is pressed,
28the event will not be propagated further. Upon pressing the \c B key, the event will propagate to the root
29item and thus be ignored.
30
31\snippet qml/focus/rectangle.qml simple key event
32\snippet qml/focus/rectangle.qml simple key event end
33
34\li If the root \l Item is reached, the key event is \l {QEvent::ignore()}{ignored} and regular Qt key handling continues.
35
36\endlist
37
38See also the \l {Keys}{Keys attached property} and \l {KeyNavigation}{KeyNavigation attached property}.
39
40\section1 Querying the Active Focus Item
41
42Whether or not an \l Item has active focus can be queried through the
43\c {Item::activeFocus} property. For example, here we have a \l Text
44type whose text is determined by whether or not it has active focus.
45
46\snippet qml/focus/rectangle.qml active focus
47
48\section1 Acquiring Focus and Focus Scopes
49
50An \l Item requests focus by setting the \c focus property to \c true.
51
52For very simple cases simply setting the \c focus property is sometimes
53sufficient. If we run the following example with the
54\l {Prototyping with the QML Runtime Tool}{qml tool},
55we see that the \c {keyHandler} type has active focus and
56pressing the \c A, \c B, or \c C keys modifies the text appropriately.
57
58\snippet qml/focus/basicwidget.qml focus true
59
60\image declarative-qmlfocus1.png
61
62However, were the above example to be used as a reusable or imported component,
63this simple use of the \c focus property is no longer sufficient.
64
65To demonstrate, we create two instances of our previously defined component and
66set the first one to have focus. The intention is that when the \c A, \c B, or
67\c C keys are pressed, the first of the two components receives the event and
68responds accordingly.
69
70The code that imports and creates two MyWidget instances:
71\snippet qml/focus/widget.qml window
72
73The MyWidget code:
74\snippet qml/focus/MyWidget.qml mywidget
75
76We want the first \c MyWidget object to have the focus, so we set its
77\c focus property to \c true. However, by running the code, it can happen that
78the second widget receives the focus.
79
80\image declarative-qmlfocus2.png
81
82Looking at both \c MyWidget and \c window code, the problem is evident - there
83are three types that set the \c focus property to \c true. The two
84\c {MyWidget}s set the \c focus to \c true and the \c window component also sets the
85focus. Ultimately, only one type can have keyboard focus, and the system has
86to decide which type receives the focus. Since QML does not guarantee which element
87will have its properties initialized first, it might be that the last \c MyWidget
88gets the initial focus.
89
90This problem is due to visibility. The \c MyWidget component would like to have
91the focus, but it cannot control the focus when it is imported or reused.
92Likewise, the \c window component does not have the ability to know if its
93imported components are requesting the focus.
94
95To solve this problem, QML introduces a concept known as a \e {focus scope}.
96For existing Qt users, a focus scope is like an automatic focus proxy.
97A focus scope is created by declaring the \l FocusScope type.
98
99In the next example, a \l FocusScope type is added to the component, and the
100visual result shown.
101
102\snippet qml/focus/myfocusscopewidget.qml widget in focusscope
103
104\image declarative-qmlfocus3.png
105
106
107Conceptually \e {focus scopes} are quite simple.
108\list
109\li Within each focus scope one object may have \c {Item::focus} set to
110\c true. If more than one \l Item has the \c focus property set, the
111last type to set the \c focus will have the focus and the others are unset,
112similar to when there are no focus scopes.
113\li When a focus scope receives active focus, the contained type with
114\c focus set (if any) also gets the active focus. If this type is
115also a \l FocusScope, the proxying behavior continues. Both the
116focus scope and the sub-focused item will have the \c activeFocus property set.
117\endlist
118
119Note that, since the FocusScope type is not a visual type, the properties
120of its children need to be exposed to the parent item of the FocusScope. Layouts
121and positioning types will use these visual and styling properties to create
122the layout. In our example, the \c Column type cannot display the two widgets
123properly because the FocusScope lacks visual properties of its own. The MyWidget
124component directly binds to the \c rectangle properties to allow the \c Column
125type to create the layout containing the children of the FocusScope.
126
127So far, the example has the second component statically selected. It is trivial
128now to extend this component to make it clickable, and add it to the original
129application. We still set one of the widgets as focused by default.
130Now, clicking either MyClickableWidget gives it focus and the other widget
131loses the focus.
132
133The code that imports and creates two MyClickableWidget instances:
134\snippet qml/focus/clickablewidget.qml clickable window
135
136The MyClickableWidget code:
137\snippet qml/focus/MyClickableWidget.qml clickable in focusscope
138
139\image declarative-qmlfocus4.png
140
141When a QML \l Item explicitly relinquishes focus (by setting its
142\c focus property to \c false while it has active focus), the
143system does not automatically select another type to receive focus. That is,
144it is possible for there to be no currently active focus.
145
146See \l{Qt Quick Examples - Key Interaction} for a
147demonstration of moving keyboard focus between multiple areas using FocusScope
148types.
149
150\section1 Advanced Uses of Focus Scopes
151
152Focus scopes allow focus to allocation to be easily partitioned. Several
153QML items use it to this effect.
154
155\l ListView, for example, is itself a focus scope. Generally this isn't
156noticeable as \l ListView doesn't usually have manually added visual children.
157By being a focus scope, \l ListView can focus the current list item without
158worrying about how that will effect the rest of the application. This allows the
159current item delegate to react to key presses.
160
161This contrived example shows how this works. Pressing the \c Return key will
162print the name of the current list item.
163
164\snippet qml/focus/advancedFocus.qml FocusScope delegate
165
166\image declarative-qmlfocus5.png
167
168While the example is simple, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Whenever
169the current item changes, the \l ListView sets the delegate's \c {Item::focus}
170property. As the \l ListView is a focus scope, this doesn't affect the
171rest of the application. However, if the \l ListView itself has
172active focus this causes the delegate itself to receive active focus.
173In this example, the root type of the delegate is also a focus scope,
174which in turn gives active focus to the \l {TextInput} type that actually performs
175the work of handling the \c {Return} key.
176
177All of the QML view classes, such as \l PathView and \l GridView, behave
178in a similar manner to allow key handling in their respective delegates.
179*/