Qt - remove all widgets from layout?

Question

This doesn't seem easy. Basically, I add QPushButtons through a function to a layout, and when the function executes, I want to clear the layout first (removing all QPushButtons and whatever else is in there), because more buttons just get appended to the scrollview.

header

QVBoxLayout* _layout;

cpp

void MainWindow::removeButtonsThenAddMore(const QString &item) {

//remove buttons/widgets

QVBoxLayout* _layout = new QVBoxLayout(this);

QPushButton button = new QPushButton(item);
_layout->addWidget(button);

QPushButton button = new QPushButton("button");
_layout->addWidget(button);

QWidget* widget = new QWidget();
widget->setLayout(_layout);

QScrollArea* scroll = new QScrollArea();
scroll->setWidget(widget);
scroll->show();

}

Answer 1

I had the same problem: I have a game app whose main window class inherits QMainWindow. Its constructor looks partly like this:

m_scene = new QGraphicsScene;
m_scene->setBackgroundBrush( Qt::black );
...
m_view = new QGraphicsView( m_scene );
...
setCentralWidget( m_view );

When I want to display a level of the game, I instantiate a QGridLayout, into which I add QLabels, and then set their pixmaps to certain pictures (pixmaps with transparent parts). The first level displays fine, but when switching to the second level, the pixmaps from the first level could still be seen behind the new ones (where the pixmap was transparent).

I tried several things to delete the old widgets. (a) I tried deleting the QGridLayout and instantiating a new one, but then learned that deleting a layout does not delete the widgets added to it. (b) I tried calling QLabel::clear() on the new pixmaps, but that of course had only an effect on the new ones, not the zombie ones. (c) I even tried deleting my m_view and m_scene, and reconstructing them every time I displayed a new level, but still no luck.

Then (d) I tried one of the solutions given above, namely

QLayoutItem *wItem;
while (wItem = widget->layout()->takeAt(0) != 0)
    delete wItem;

but that didn't work, either.

However, googling further, I found an answer that worked. What was missing from (d) was a call to delete item->widget(). The following now works for me:

// THIS IS THE SOLUTION!
// Delete all existing widgets, if any.
if ( m_view->layout() != NULL )
{
    QLayoutItem* item;
    while ( ( item = m_view->layout()->takeAt( 0 ) ) != NULL )
    {
        delete item->widget();
        delete item;
    }
    delete m_view->layout();
}

and then I instantiate a new QGridLayout as with the first level, add the new level's widgets to it, etc.

Qt is great in many ways, but I do think this problems shows that things could be a bit easier here.