QWindowKit

Cross-platform window customization framework for Qt Widgets and Qt Quick.

This project inherited most of wangwenx190 FramelessHelper implementation, with a complete refactoring and upgrading of the architecture.

Feature requests are welcome.

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Supported Platforms

• Microsoft Windows
• Apple macOS (11+)
• GNU/Linux

Features

• Full support of Windows 11 Snap Layout
• Better workaround to handle Windows 10 top border issue
• Support Mac system buttons geometry customization
• Simpler APIs, more detailed documentations and comments

Gallery

Windows 11 (With Snap Layout)

Windows 10 (And 7, Vista)

macOS & Linux

macOS	Linux (Ubuntu 20.04)

Requirements

Component	Requirement	Details
Qt	>=5.12	Core, Gui, Widgets, Quick
Compiler	>=C++17	MSVC 2019, GCC, Clang
CMake	>=3.19	>=3.20 is recommended

Please read Vulnerabilities carefully to acquire detailed requirements.

Tested Compilers

• Windows
  • MSVC: 2019, 2022
  • MinGW (GCC): 13.2.0
• macOS
  • Clang 14.0.3
• Ubuntu
  • GCC: 9.4.0

Dependencies

• Qt 5.12 or higher
• qmsetup

Integrate

Build & Install

git clone --recursive https://github.com/stdware/qwindowkit
cd qwindowkit

cmake -B build -S . \
  -Dqmsetup_DIR=<dir> \ # Optional
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path/install \
  -G "Ninja Multi-Config"

cmake --build build --target install --config Debug
cmake --build build --target install --config Release

You can also include this directory as a subproject if you choose CMake as your build system.

For other build systems, you need to install with CMake first and include the corresponding configuration files in your project.

Import

CMake Project

cmake -B build -DQWindowKit_DIR=/path/install/lib/cmake/QWindowKit

find_package(QWindowKit COMPONENTS Core Widgets Quick REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(widgets_app PUBLIC QWindowKit::Widgets)
target_link_libraries(quick_app PUBLIC QWindowKit::Quick)

QMake Project

# WidgetsApp.pro
include("/path/install/share/QWindowKit/qmake/QWKWidgets.pri")

# QuickApp.pro
include("/path/install/share/QWindowKit/qmake/QWKQuick.pri")

Visual Studio Project

TODO

Quick Start

Qt Widgets Application

Initialization

The following initialization should be done before any widget constructs.

#include <QtWidgets/QApplication>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QGuiApplication::setAttribute(Qt::AA_DontCreateNativeWidgetSiblings)
    
    // ...
}

Setup Window Agent

First, setup WidgetWindowAgent for your top QWidget instance. (Each window needs its own agent.)

#include <QWKWidgets/widgetwindowagent.h>

MyWidget::MyWidget(QWidget *parent) {
    // ...
    auto agent = new QWK::WidgetWindowAgent(this);
    agent->setup(this);
    // ...
}

If you don't want to derive a new widget class or change the constructor, you can initialize the agent after the window constructs.

auto w = new MyWidget();
auto agent = new QWK::WidgetWindowAgent(w);
agent->setup(w);

Construct Title bar

Then, construct your title bar widget, without which the window lacks the basic interaction feature, and it's better to put it into the window's layout.

You can use the WindowBar provided by WidgetFrame in the examples as the container of your title bar components.

Let WidgetWindowAgent know which widget the title bar is.

agent->setTitleBar(myTitleBar);

Next, set system button hints to let WidgetWindowAgent know the role of the child widgets, which is important for the Snap Layout to work.

agent->setSystemButton(QWK::WindowAgentBase::WindowIcon, myTitleBar->iconButton());
agent->setSystemButton(QWK::WindowAgentBase::Minimize, myTitleBar->minButton());
agent->setSystemButton(QWK::WindowAgentBase::Maximize, myTitleBar->maxButton());
agent->setSystemButton(QWK::WindowAgentBase::Close, myTitleBar->closeButton());

Doing this does not mean that these buttons' click events are automatically associated with window actions, you still need to manually connect the signals and slots to emulate the native window behaviors.

On macOS, this step can be skipped because it is better to use the buttons provided by the system.

Last but not least, set hit-test visible hint to let WidgetWindowAgent know other widgets that desire to receive mouse events.

agent->setHitTestVisible(myTitleBar->menuBar(), true);

The rest region within the title bar will be regarded as the draggable area for the user to move the window.

Qt Quick Application

Initialization

Make sure you have registered QWindowKit into QtQuick:

#include <QWKQuick/qwkquickglobal.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    // ...
    QQmlApplicationEngine engine;
    // ...
    QWK::registerTypes(&engine);
    // ...
}

Setup Window Components

Then you can use QWindowKit data types and classes by importing it's URI:

import QtQuick 2.15
import QtQuick.Window 2.15
import QWindowKit 1.0

Window {
    id: window
    visible: false // We hide it first, so we can move the window to our desired position silently.
    Component.onCompleted: {
        windowAgent.setup(window)
        window.visible = true
    }
    WindowAgent {
        id: windowAgent
        // ...
    }
}

You can omit the version number or use "auto" instead of "1.0" for the module URI if you are using Qt6.

Learn More

See examples for more demo use cases. The examples have no High DPI support.

• QWindowKit Internals [TODO]
• FramelessHelper Related

Vulnerabilities

Qt Version

• To achieve better frameless functionality, QWindowKit depends heavily on Qt's internal implementation. However, there are differences in different versions of Qt, and earlier versions of Qt5 and Qt6 have many bugs which make it extremely difficult for QWindowKit to workaround without changing the Qt source code.
• And also due to limited manpower, although QWindowKit can be successfully compiled on Qt 5.12 or later, it can hardly work perfectly on all Qt versions.
• Therefore, the following Qt version ranges are recommended, if there are any exceptions with QWindowKit in your application, make sure the Qt version you use is in the ranges before raising the issue.
  • Qt 5: 5.15.2 or higher
  • Qt 6: 6.6.2 or higher

Hot Switch

• Once you have made the window frameless, it will not be able to switch back to the system border.

Native Child Widget

• There must not be any internal child widget with Qt::WA_NativeWindow property enabled, otherwise the native features and display may be abnormal. Therefore, do not set any widget that has called QWidget::winId() or QWidget::setAttribute(Qt::WA_NativeWindow) as a descendant of a frameless window.
  • If you really need to move widgets between different windows, make sure that the widget is not a top-level window and wrap it with a frameless container window.

TODO

• Fix 5.15 window abnormal behavior
• More documentations
• When do we support Linux native features?

Special Thanks

• Maplespe
• zhiyiYo

License

QWindowKit is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.