How to append text to QPlainTextEdit without adding newline, and keep scroll at the bottom?

Question

I need to append text to QPlainTextEdit without adding a newline to the text, but both methods appendPlainText() and appendHtml() adds actually new paragraph.

I can do that manually with QTextCursor:

QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(my_plain_text_edit->document());
text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);

text_cursor.insertText("string to append. ");

That works, but I also need to keep scroll at bottom if it was at bottom before append.

I tried to copy logic from Qt's sources, but I stuck on it, because there actually QPlainTextEditPrivate class is used, and I can't find the way to do the same without it: say, I don't see method verticalOffset() in QPlainTextEdit.

Actually, these sources contain many weird (at the first look, at least) things, and I have no idea how to implement this.

Here's the source code of append(): http://code.qt.io/cgit/qt/qt.git/tree/src/gui/widgets/qplaintextedit.cpp#n2763

Bose

Answer 1

Ok, I'm not sure if my solution is actually "nice", but it seems to work for me: I just made new class QPlainTextEdit_My inherited from QPlainTextEdit, and added new methods appendPlainTextNoNL(), appendHtmlNoNL(), insertNL().

Please NOTE: read comments about params check_nl and check_br carefully, this is important! I spent several hours to figure out why is my widget so slow when I append text without new paragraphs.

/******************************************************************************************
 * INCLUDED FILES
 *****************************************************************************************/

#include "qplaintextedit_my.h"
#include <QScrollBar>
#include <QTextCursor>
#include <QStringList>
#include <QRegExp>


/******************************************************************************************
 * CONSTRUCTOR, DESTRUCTOR
 *****************************************************************************************/

QPlainTextEdit_My::QPlainTextEdit_My(QWidget *parent) :
   QPlainTextEdit(parent)
{

}

QPlainTextEdit_My::QPlainTextEdit_My(const QString &text, QWidget *parent) :
   QPlainTextEdit(text, parent)
{

}        

/******************************************************************************************
 * METHODS
 *****************************************************************************************/

/* private      */

/* protected    */

/* public       */

/**
 * append html without adding new line (new paragraph)
 *
 * @param html       html text to append
 * @param check_nl   if true, then text will be splitted by \n char,
 *                   and each substring will be added as separate QTextBlock.
 *                   NOTE: this important: if you set this to false,
 *                   then you should append new blocks manually (say, by calling appendNL() )
 *                   because one huge block will significantly slow down your widget.
 */
void QPlainTextEdit_My::appendPlainTextNoNL(const QString &text, bool check_nl)
{
   QScrollBar *p_scroll_bar = this->verticalScrollBar();
   bool bool_at_bottom = (p_scroll_bar->value() == p_scroll_bar->maximum());

   if (!check_nl){
      QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
      text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
      text_cursor.insertText(text);
   } else {
      QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
      text_cursor.beginEditBlock();

      text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);

      QStringList string_list = text.split('\n');

      for (int i = 0; i < string_list.size(); i++){
         text_cursor.insertText(string_list.at(i));
         if ((i + 1) < string_list.size()){
            text_cursor.insertBlock();
         }
      }


      text_cursor.endEditBlock();
   }

   if (bool_at_bottom){
      p_scroll_bar->setValue(p_scroll_bar->maximum());
   }
}

/**
 * append html without adding new line (new paragraph)
 *
 * @param html       html text to append
 * @param check_br   if true, then text will be splitted by "<br>" tag,
 *                   and each substring will be added as separate QTextBlock.
 *                   NOTE: this important: if you set this to false,
 *                   then you should append new blocks manually (say, by calling appendNL() )
 *                   because one huge block will significantly slow down your widget.
 */
void QPlainTextEdit_My::appendHtmlNoNL(const QString &html, bool check_br)
{
   QScrollBar *p_scroll_bar = this->verticalScrollBar();
   bool bool_at_bottom = (p_scroll_bar->value() == p_scroll_bar->maximum());

   if (!check_br){
      QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
      text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
      text_cursor.insertHtml(html);
   } else {

      QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
      text_cursor.beginEditBlock();

      text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);

      QStringList string_list = html.split(QRegExp("\\<br\\s*\\/?\\>", Qt::CaseInsensitive));

      for (int i = 0; i < string_list.size(); i++){
         text_cursor.insertHtml( string_list.at(i) );
         if ((i + 1) < string_list.size()){
            text_cursor.insertBlock();
         }
      }

      text_cursor.endEditBlock();
   }

   if (bool_at_bottom){
      p_scroll_bar->setValue(p_scroll_bar->maximum());
   }
}

/**
 * Just insert new QTextBlock to the text.
 * (in fact, adds new paragraph)
 */
void QPlainTextEdit_My::insertNL()
{
   QScrollBar *p_scroll_bar = this->verticalScrollBar();
   bool bool_at_bottom = (p_scroll_bar->value() == p_scroll_bar->maximum());

   QTextCursor text_cursor = QTextCursor(this->document());
   text_cursor.movePosition(QTextCursor::End);
   text_cursor.insertBlock();

   if (bool_at_bottom){
      p_scroll_bar->setValue(p_scroll_bar->maximum());
   }
}

I'm confused because in original code there are much more complicated calculations of atBottom:

const bool atBottom =  q->isVisible()
                       && (control->blockBoundingRect(document->lastBlock()).bottom() - verticalOffset()
                           <= viewport->rect().bottom());

and needScroll:

if (atBottom) {
    const bool needScroll =  !centerOnScroll
                             || control->blockBoundingRect(document->lastBlock()).bottom() - verticalOffset()
                             > viewport->rect().bottom();
    if (needScroll)
        vbar->setValue(vbar->maximum());
}

But my easy solution seems to work too.

Bose

At least on Qt 5.2.1 insertPlainText() / text_cursor.insertText() seems to insert blocks automatically when it encounters a newline. – Protege

Answer 2

I'll just quote what I found here:

http://www.jcjc-dev.com/2013/03/qt-48-appending-text-to-qtextedit.html

---

We just need to move the cursor to the end of the contents in the QTextEdit and use insertPlainText. In my code, it looks like this:

myTextEdit->moveCursor (QTextCursor::End);
myTextEdit->insertPlainText (myString);
myTextEdit->moveCursor (QTextCursor::End);

As simple as that. If your application needs to keep the cursor where it was before appending the text, you can use the QTextCursor::position() and QTextCursor::setPosition() methods, or

just copying the cursor before modifying its position [QTextCursor QTextEdit::textCursor()] and then setting that as the cursor [void QTextEdit::setTextCursor(const QTextCursor & cursor)].

Here’s an example:

QTextCursor prev_cursor = myTextEdit->textCursor();
myTextEdit->moveCursor (QTextCursor::End);
myTextEdit->insertPlainText (myString);
myTextEdit->setTextCursor (prev_cursor);

Rorry

A minor correction, setTextCursor takes a QTextCursor, not a pointer. Source: doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qplaintextedit.html#setTextCursor. Also your link is down. – Sweeping

Answer 3

The current Answer was not an option for me. It was much simplier to add html with no new lines with the following method.

//logs is a QPlainTextEdit object
ui.logs->moveCursor(QTextCursor::End);
ui.logs->textCursor().insertHtml(out);
ui.logs->moveCursor(QTextCursor::End);

Travertine

This answer is not an option for me, because: (1) It keeps scrolling down on new data even if current scroll position isn't at the bottom. This is very annoying: while new data arrives, user is unable to examine data that was added before; and (2) when new data arrives, it clears user's selection. Probably, in some cases this behavior is acceptable, but in my case, it is very user-unfriendly. – Bose

Answer 4

Like any string:

QTextEdit *myTextEdit = ui->textEdit;
myTextEdit->moveCursor (QTextCursor::End);
myTextEdit->insertPlainText (myString+"\n");

I tried it and it worked.

Nall