Question

I am trying to make a GUI so when you increase the "Article" count, then more of the article inputs show up. For example, if I change the Articles count to 2, I would want another group of inputs to show up for Article 2, and if the Articles count changes to three, there would be three groups of inputs, but since that would use up more space than the window has, it would begin to scroll.

I was thinking of using one of the tree, list, or table widgets, but I am not sure if that is even the right direction I am supposed to be going to. Can anyone push me in the right direction?

Here is a picture, since my description is not good.

Answer 1

You should put all the widgets needed for one article into one single custom widget. Whenever the spin box is changed (code in slot) you can add / remove one instance of such a custom widget to a scroll area.

Within the constructor of this custom widget class (let’s call it ArticleWidget), you should define signals in your custom widget which notify about changes made in its child widgets. Connect these within your custom widget:

ArticleWidget::ArticleWidget(QWidget *parent) :
        QWidget(parent)
{
    ui->setupUi(this); // when you use QtDesigner to design the widget

    // propagate signals from my inner widgets to myself:
    connect(ui->title, SIGNAL(textChanged(QString)),
            SIGNAL(titleChanged(QString)));
}

In the outer widget, whenever creating such a custom widget, connect its signals to your processing slots:

void OuterWidget::articleCountChanged(int)
{
    ...
    if(/*increased*/)
    {
        ArticleWidget *article = new ArticleWidget(this);
        connect(article, SIGNAL(titleChanged(QString)),
                SLOT(art_titleChanged(QString)));
        ui->scrollAreaViewport->layout()->addWidget(article);
    }
    ...
}

You can access the article widget using sender():

void OuterWidget::art_titleChanged(QString)
{
    ArticleWidget *articleWidget = qobject_cast<ArticleWidget*>(sender());
    Q_ASSERT(articleWidget); // make sure the signal comes from an ArticleWidget

    // if you want to store articles in a vector of custom types,
    // you could give this type a pointer to the widget, so you can
    // find the index if you have the widget pointer:
    foreach(Article *article, articles)
        if(article->widget == articleWidget)
            article->title = title; // make some changes
}

This code assumes that you hold all your articles in a struct similar to this:

struct ArticleData
{
    ArticleWidget *widget;
    QString title;
    ...
};

and have a vector of them in your outer widget class:

QVector<ArticleData*> articles;