man qwtchangelog (3): What's new in Qwt 6.1

New plot items

QwtPlotBarChart

Bar chart, see 'examples/distrowatch'
QwtPlotMultiBarChart

Chart of grouped bars - stacked or aligned side by side. See 'examples/barchart'
QwtPlotTradingCurve

Candlestick or OHLC charts typically used to describe price movements over time. See 'examples/stockchart'
QwtPlotShapeItem

A plot item to display rectangles, circles, polygons and all other type of shapes ( built from intersections or unifications ), that can be expressed by a QPainterPath. See 'examples/itemeditor'
QwtPlotLegendItem

A legend on the plot canvas. See 'examples/legends'
QwtPlotZoneItem

A horizontal or vertical section
QwtPlotTextLabel

In opposite to a QwtPlotMarker the text is not aligned to a plot coordinate but according to the geometry of the canvas ( f.e top/centered for a title ). See 'playground/curvetracker'.

Scales beyond linear and logarithmic transformations

QwtScaleTransformation has been replaced by QwtTransform and its derived classes:

QwtTransform
QwtNullTransform
QwtLogTransform
QwtPowerTransform

Individual transformations ( f.e. different scaling for special sections ) can be implemented by overloading QwtTransform ( see playground/scaleengine ).

QwtLinearScaleEngine and QwtLogScaleEngine are not limited to base 10 anymore.

Datetime scales

A set of a new classes for displaying datetime values:

QwtDate

A collection of methods to convert between QDateTime and doubles
QwtDateScaleEngine

A scale engine that aligns and finds ticks in terms of datetime units.
QwtDateScaleDraw

A scale draw mapping values to datetime strings.

Scales for Qt::UTC and Qt::LocalTime are supported.

Redesign of the dial and meter widgets

Many parts of the class design of the dial and meter widgets were left over from the 90s ( Qwt 0.2, Qt 1.1 ).

The derivation tree is simpler and more logical:

QwtAbstractScale is a QWidget
QwtAbstractSlider is a QwtAbstractScale. ( for sliders without scales QAbstractSlider should be the base class )
QwtThermo is also a QwtAbstractScale
QwtDial, QwtKnob, QwtSlider are derived from QwtAbstractSlider
QwtCounter is derived from QWidget

QwtDoubleRange has been removed.

All classes use the terminology known from QAbstractSlider - as far as possible. The extended system for scales is completely supported.

Basic support for an OpenGL plot canvas

QwtPlotGLCanvas offers the option to draw plot items using an OpenGL paint engine ( QPaintEngine::OpenGL/OpenGL2 ), This is not what could be implemented with native OpenGL, but it offers hardware acceleration in environments, where the raster paint engine is the only option. ( f.e Qt4/Windows, or Qt5 on all platforms ).

QwtPlotGLCanvas is in an experimental state and is not recommended for average use cases.

A new system for plot legends

QwtLegend has been decoupled from QwtPlot and can be replaced by application specific implementations. Plot items and the legend exchange the information using QwtLegendData.

QwtPlotLegendItem is a new plot item that displays a legend on the plot canvas.

The following examples demonstrate how to use the new system:

examples/legends

shows how to use the new legend system
examples/stockchart

implementats a QTreeView with checkable items as legend

Off-screen paint device for vector graphics

QwtGraphic can be copied like QImage or QPixmap but is scalable like QSvgGenerator. It is implemented as a record/replay paint device like QPicture.

QwtWidgetOverlay

QwtWidgetOverlay is a base class for implementing widget overlays - primarily used for use cases like graphical editors or running cursors for the plot canvas.

The following examples show how to use overlays:

examples/itemeditor
examples/curvetracker

QwtPicker ( -> QwtPlotPicker, QwtPlotZoomer ) internally uses QwtWidgetOverlay now, making it easier to implement individual rubber bands.

QwtSymbol

New symbol types have been introduced:

QwtSymbol::Path
QwtSymbol::Pixmap
QwtSymbol::Graphic
QwtSymbol::SvgDocument

QwtSymbol autodetect the most performant paint strategy for a paint device what is in most situations using a QPixmap cache.

QwtSymbol::setPinPoint() allows one to align the symbol individually, f.e to the position of the peak of an arrow.

QwtPlotCurve

Some optimizations that got lost with introducing the floating point based render code with Qwt 6.0 have been reenabled. Other specific optimizations have been added.

New paint attributes:

QwtPlotCurve::FilterPoints
QwtPlotCurve::MinimizeMemory
QwtPlotCurve::ImageBuffer

QwtPlotCurve::CacheSymbols has been removed, as caching is implemented in QwtSymbol now.

QwtPlotCurve::drawLines(), QwtPlotCurve::drawDots(), QwtPlotCurve::drawSteps() and QwtPlotCurve::drawSticks() are virtual now.

QwtPlot

A footer similar to a title has been added.

QwtPlot::ExternalLegend is obsolete with the new system for legends. The signals QwtPlot::legendClicked(), QwtPlot::legendChecked() have been removed. Applications need to connect to QwtLegend::clicked() and QwtLegend::checked().

To support using an OpenGL canvas QwtPlot::setCanvas has been added. This has 2 important implications for the application code:

QwtPlot::canvas() returns QWidget and needs to be casted, when using methods of QwtPlotCanvas.
QwtPlotCanvas can be created and assigned in application code, what makes it possible to derive and overload methods.

The initialization of a plot canvas with Qwt 6.1 will probably look like this:

QwtPlotCanvas* canvas = new QwtPlotCanvas();
canvas->setXY( ... );
...
plot->setCanvas( canvas );

To have a consistent API QwtPlot::setPlotLayout() has been added,

Other

QwtScaleDiv

The following methods have been added:

QwtScaleDiv::inverted()
QwtScaleDiv::bounded()
QwtScaleDiv::isEmpty()
QwtScaleDiv::isIncreasing()
QDebug operator

The following methods have been removed:

QwtScaleDiv::isValid(), QwtScaleDiv::invalidate()

The valid state was left over from early Qwt versions indicating a state of the autoscaler.

QwtScaleEngine