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// Copyright (C) 2021 The Qt Company Ltd.
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// SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-Qt-Commercial OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only
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/*!
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\page qtquick-input-focus.html
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\title Keyboard Focus in Qt Quick
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\brief handling keyboard focus
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When a key is pressed or released, a key event is generated and delivered to the
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focused Qt Quick \l Item. To facilitate the construction of reusable components
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and to address some of the cases unique to fluid user interfaces, the Qt Quick items add a
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scope based extension to Qt's traditional keyboard focus model.
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\section1 Key Handling Overview
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When the user presses or releases a key, the following occurs:
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\list 1
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\li Qt receives the key action and generates a key event.
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\li If a \l QQuickWindow is the \l{QGuiApplication::focusWindow()}{focus window}
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of the application, the key event is delivered to it.
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\li The key event is delivered by the scene to the \l Item with
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\e {active focus}. If no item has active focus, the key event is ignored.
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\li If the \l QQuickItem with active focus accepts the key event, propagation
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stops. Otherwise the event is sent to the Item's parent until
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the event is accepted, or the root item is reached.
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If the \c {Rectangle} type in the following example has active focus and the \c A key is pressed,
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the event will not be propagated further. Upon pressing the \c B key, the event will propagate to the root
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item and thus be ignored.
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\snippet qml/focus/rectangle.qml simple key event
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\snippet qml/focus/rectangle.qml simple key event end
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\li If the root \l Item is reached, the key event is \l {QEvent::ignore()}{ignored} and regular Qt key handling continues.
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\endlist
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See also the \l {Keys}{Keys attached property} and \l {KeyNavigation}{KeyNavigation attached property}.
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\section1 Querying the Active Focus Item
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Whether or not an \l Item has active focus can be queried through the
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\c {Item::activeFocus} property. For example, here we have a \l Text
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type whose text is determined by whether or not it has active focus.
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\snippet qml/focus/rectangle.qml active focus
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\section1 Acquiring Focus and Focus Scopes
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An \l Item requests focus by setting the \c focus property to \c true.
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For very simple cases simply setting the \c focus property is sometimes
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sufficient. If we run the following example with the
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\l {Prototyping with the QML Runtime Tool}{qml tool},
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we see that the \c {keyHandler} type has active focus and
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pressing the \c A, \c B, or \c C keys modifies the text appropriately.
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\snippet qml/focus/basicwidget.qml focus true
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\image declarative-qmlfocus1.png
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However, were the above example to be used as a reusable or imported component,
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this simple use of the \c focus property is no longer sufficient.
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To demonstrate, we create two instances of our previously defined component and
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set the first one to have focus. The intention is that when the \c A, \c B, or
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\c C keys are pressed, the first of the two components receives the event and
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responds accordingly.
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The code that imports and creates two MyWidget instances:
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\snippet qml/focus/widget.qml window
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The MyWidget code:
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\snippet qml/focus/MyWidget.qml mywidget
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We want the first \c MyWidget object to have the focus, so we set its
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\c focus property to \c true. However, by running the code, it can happen that
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the second widget receives the focus.
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\image declarative-qmlfocus2.png
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Looking at both \c MyWidget and \c window code, the problem is evident - there
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are three types that set the \c focus property to \c true. The two
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\c {MyWidget}s set the \c focus to \c true and the \c window component also sets the
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focus. Ultimately, only one type can have keyboard focus, and the system has
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to decide which type receives the focus. Since QML does not guarantee which element
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will have its properties initialized first, it might be that the last \c MyWidget
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gets the initial focus.
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This problem is due to visibility. The \c MyWidget component would like to have
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the focus, but it cannot control the focus when it is imported or reused.
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Likewise, the \c window component does not have the ability to know if its
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imported components are requesting the focus.
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To solve this problem, QML introduces a concept known as a \e {focus scope}.
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For existing Qt users, a focus scope is like an automatic focus proxy.
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A focus scope is created by declaring the \l FocusScope type.
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In the next example, a \l FocusScope type is added to the component, and the
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visual result shown.
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\snippet qml/focus/myfocusscopewidget.qml widget in focusscope
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\image declarative-qmlfocus3.png
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Conceptually \e {focus scopes} are quite simple.
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\list
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\li Within each focus scope one object may have \c {Item::focus} set to
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\c true. If more than one \l Item has the \c focus property set, the
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last type to set the \c focus will have the focus and the others are unset,
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similar to when there are no focus scopes.
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\li When a focus scope receives active focus, the contained type with
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\c focus set (if any) also gets the active focus. If this type is
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also a \l FocusScope, the proxying behavior continues. Both the
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focus scope and the sub-focused item will have the \c activeFocus property set.
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\endlist
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Note that, since the FocusScope type is not a visual type, the properties
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of its children need to be exposed to the parent item of the FocusScope. Layouts
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and positioning types will use these visual and styling properties to create
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the layout. In our example, the \c Column type cannot display the two widgets
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properly because the FocusScope lacks visual properties of its own. The MyWidget
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component directly binds to the \c rectangle properties to allow the \c Column
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type to create the layout containing the children of the FocusScope.
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So far, the example has the second component statically selected. It is trivial
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now to extend this component to make it clickable, and add it to the original
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application. We still set one of the widgets as focused by default.
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Now, clicking either MyClickableWidget gives it focus and the other widget
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loses the focus.
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The code that imports and creates two MyClickableWidget instances:
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\snippet qml/focus/clickablewidget.qml clickable window
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The MyClickableWidget code:
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\snippet qml/focus/MyClickableWidget.qml clickable in focusscope
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\image declarative-qmlfocus4.png
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When a QML \l Item explicitly relinquishes focus (by setting its
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\c focus property to \c false while it has active focus), the
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system does not automatically select another type to receive focus. That is,
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it is possible for there to be no currently active focus.
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See \l{Qt Quick Examples - Key Interaction} for a
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demonstration of moving keyboard focus between multiple areas using FocusScope
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types.
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\section1 Advanced Uses of Focus Scopes
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Focus scopes allow focus to allocation to be easily partitioned. Several
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QML items use it to this effect.
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\l ListView, for example, is itself a focus scope. Generally this isn't
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noticeable as \l ListView doesn't usually have manually added visual children.
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By being a focus scope, \l ListView can focus the current list item without
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worrying about how that will effect the rest of the application. This allows the
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current item delegate to react to key presses.
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This contrived example shows how this works. Pressing the \c Return key will
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print the name of the current list item.
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\snippet qml/focus/advancedFocus.qml FocusScope delegate
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\image declarative-qmlfocus5.png
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While the example is simple, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Whenever
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the current item changes, the \l ListView sets the delegate's \c {Item::focus}
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property. As the \l ListView is a focus scope, this doesn't affect the
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rest of the application. However, if the \l ListView itself has
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active focus this causes the delegate itself to receive active focus.
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In this example, the root type of the delegate is also a focus scope,
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which in turn gives active focus to the \l {TextInput} type that actually performs
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the work of handling the \c {Return} key.
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All of the QML view classes, such as \l PathView and \l GridView, behave
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in a similar manner to allow key handling in their respective delegates.
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*/
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