Question

I’m using the latest version of Qt and noticed that on Windows the menus are rendered in a very old-school fashion (similar to the way they look on other cross platform apps, like Firefox). I want the menu rendering (colors, gradient, etc.) to take on a more modern appearance. Is it possible to skin or modify the way menus are rendered in Qt?

Answer 1

I’m not sure which version of Qt or Windows you’re using, but on my Windows 7 computer with Qt 4.8.1 installed, the default menus look normal, like any other Windows 7 menu.

To change the look of a menu, you have two broad (easy) options:

1. Use QStyle to change it to a different “native” look (use QApplication::setStyle() or QWidget::setStyle()). For example, you can make it look like a Windows XP menu like this:

   fileMenu->setStyle(new QWindowsXPStyle);
   

2. Use Qt style sheets to customize how you want the menu to be rendered. For example:

   fileMenu->setStyleSheet("background-color: red;");