Implementing Qt File Dialog with a Different File System Library (boost)

Question

Hi,

I am writing an application which requires me to use another file system and file engine handlers and not the qt's default ones. Basically what I want to be able to do is to use qt's file dialog but have an underlying file system handler (for example built using boost file system library) of mine handling all the operations with regards to file and directory operations within that dialog. I have already written a custom file engine which handles some of the operations but I am now stuck with Qt's file system model and the file system watcher engine, as I need to have the signals transmitted for this custom file engine. Seems like I have a daunting task ahead. Am I heading in the right direction?

Is there any other simpler way that I could implement this? Can anyone give me any idea on how to proceed. I was thinking of looking into proxy models but not sure if that would work.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

Proxy model operates with data, that underlying model contains, so, you can't use it to get entirely new model contents.

The obvious way to do such tasks is to investigate, what kind of model QFileDialog has, and then replace the model.

You can, probably, copy the model from QFileDialog, with respect to your new file engine, of course, and then use propxy model in a somewhat strange way: set it (it will connect to underlying model of QFileDialog, you can't access another way) and then use your proxy's setSourceModel() to set your model instead.

Or you simply can get the code of QFileDialog and replace filesystem-awared code with yours. But it smells bad, I think, and I don't know if it legal and what issues you can face due to the licences and so one.

Answer 2

It used to be possible to do this with QAbstractFileEngine etc. but the changes to QDir in Qt 4.6 broke it somewhat - see Qt bug 10333 for my experiences.