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QCPLayer Class Reference

A layer that may contain objects, to control the rendering order. More...

Inheritance diagram for QCPLayer:

Public Member Functions

 QCPLayer (QCustomPlot *parentPlot, const QString &layerName)
 
QCustomPlotparentPlot () const
 
QString name () const
 
int index () const
 
QList< QCPLayerable * > children () const
 

Protected Member Functions

void addChild (QCPLayerable *layerable, bool prepend)
 
void removeChild (QCPLayerable *layerable)
 

Protected Attributes

QCustomPlotmParentPlot
 
QString mName
 
int mIndex
 
QList< QCPLayerable * > mChildren
 

Friends

class QCustomPlot
 
class QCPLayerable
 

Detailed Description

A layer that may contain objects, to control the rendering order.

The Layering system of QCustomPlot is the mechanism to control the rendering order of the elements inside the plot.

It is based on the two classes QCPLayer and QCPLayerable. QCustomPlot holds an ordered list of one or more instances of QCPLayer (see QCustomPlot::addLayer, QCustomPlot::layer, QCustomPlot::moveLayer, etc.). When replotting, QCustomPlot goes through the list of layers bottom to top and successively draws the layerables of the layers.

A QCPLayer contains an ordered list of QCPLayerable instances. QCPLayerable is an abstract base class from which almost all visible objects derive, like axes, grids, graphs, items, etc.

Initially, QCustomPlot has five layers: "background", "grid", "main", "axes" and "legend" (in that order). The top two layers "axes" and "legend" contain the default axes and legend, so they will be drawn on top. In the middle, there is the "main" layer. It is initially empty and set as the current layer (see QCustomPlot::setCurrentLayer). This means, all new plottables, items etc. are created on this layer by default. Then comes the "grid" layer which contains the QCPGrid instances (which belong tightly to QCPAxis, see QCPAxis::grid). The Axis rect background shall be drawn behind everything else, thus the default QCPAxisRect instance is placed on the "background" layer. Of course, the layer affiliation of the individual objects can be changed as required (QCPLayerable::setLayer).

Controlling the ordering of objects is easy: Create a new layer in the position you want it to be, e.g. above "main", with QCustomPlot::addLayer. Then set the current layer with QCustomPlot::setCurrentLayer to that new layer and finally create the objects normally. They will be placed on the new layer automatically, due to the current layer setting. Alternatively you could have also ignored the current layer setting and just moved the objects with QCPLayerable::setLayer to the desired layer after creating them.

It is also possible to move whole layers. For example, If you want the grid to be shown in front of all plottables/items on the "main" layer, just move it above "main" with QCustomPlot::moveLayer.

The rendering order within one layer is simply by order of creation or insertion. The item created last (or added last to the layer), is drawn on top of all other objects on that layer.

When a layer is deleted, the objects on it are not deleted with it, but fall on the layer below the deleted layer, see QCustomPlot::removeLayer.

Constructor & Destructor Documentation

QCPLayer::QCPLayer ( QCustomPlot parentPlot,
const QString &  layerName 
)

Creates a new QCPLayer instance.

Normally you shouldn't directly instantiate layers, use QCustomPlot::addLayer instead.

Warning
It is not checked that layerName is actually a unique layer name in parentPlot. This check is only performed by QCustomPlot::addLayer.

Member Function Documentation

QList< QCPLayerable * > QCPLayer::children ( ) const
inline

Returns a list of all layerables on this layer. The order corresponds to the rendering order: layerables with higher indices are drawn above layerables with lower indices.

int QCPLayer::index ( ) const
inline

Returns the index this layer has in the QCustomPlot. The index is the integer number by which this layer can be accessed via QCustomPlot::layer.

Layers with higher indices will be drawn above layers with lower indices.


The documentation for this class was generated from the following files: