Difference between QPushButton and QToolButton

Question

I'm new to Qt and the difference between QPushButton and QToolButton is not so clear to me.

I know that a QToolButton is usually used in a QToolBar and it usually shows only an icon, without text, but I don't quite understand the main difference between both.

Does it have any bigger difference? When should I use QPushButton and when should I use QToolButton?

I would like to know this to use the most appropriate button, and I need to perform some GUI tests and maybe it can be relevant.

Quarterhour

You explained the difference yourself: one is meant for being used in a tool bar, the other as a ordinary button in the UI (for instance in a dialog you'd have "OK" and "Cancel" buttons). Do you have a specific UI / UX question that you're not asking? – Rootlet

Answer 1

QPushButton is simply a button. QToolButton is part of a group of widgets in the QtWidgets module that operate on QActions: QMenu and QToolBar are other examples. As a result, QToolButton is much more complex under the hood than QPushButton.

Some examples of how they are different in practice:

• QToolButton is tightly integrated with QAction. Changing the icon, text, or other properties of a tool button's default action is reflected on the button.
• You can change the layout of the tool button contents (icon only, text only, text beside icon, text below icon). This is not possible for a QPushButton.
• QToolButton supports a "split" button type: a sidebar hot zone opens a menu instead of triggering the default action.
• Tool buttons can be created directly in a QToolBar by adding an action. Other widgets must be explicitly added to the toolbar.
• A tool button is meant to be displayed in a grid, so it has smaller default internal margins than a push button.
• QPushButton is more for "Ok"/"Close" type buttons that contain text with an optional icon.
• A QToolButton should generally have an icon.
• A QPushButton should always have text.

Lyublin

Answer 2

From the Qt documentation: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtoolbutton.html#details

A tool button is a special button that provides quick-access to specific commands or options. As opposed to a normal command button, a tool button usually doesn't show a text label, but shows an icon instead.

When I want a button in the GUI with an icon only, I use QToolButton. When I want a classic button, I use QPushButton.

No big differences.

Plagio