QDoc Linking Guidelines

QDoc Linking Guidelines

This page is part of the Qt Writing Guidelines

This page contains information about creating links to API pages and other articles and content.
Note: This applies to Qt 5 QDoc only.

Enabling Linking to Content Outside a Module

To link to a section, API, or page outside of the documentation project (content not included in the .qdocconf file), the module name must be set to the depends qdocconf variable.

The depends entry corresponds to the directories found in the QT_INSTALL_DOCS directory.

Note: To link to pages outside of the module, consider using the [] syntax as explained in the Resolving Ambiguous or Colliding Link Names section below.

Using QDoc’s Autolink Feature

QDoc detects certain keywords such as C++ class names and attempts to link create links to them. Therefore, there is no need
to use the \l command to create a link.

Using the \l Command

In general, to create a link, use the \l command followed by the link name.
Valid link names include:

• Page title
• Class name
• QML Type name
• Targets created by \keyword and \target
• HTTP URLs
• Section titles with the PageTitle#SectionTitle syntax
• API members such as properties and functions with the APIPage::member syntax. For example Button::checked

Notes:

• The parentheses () after QML or C++ functions are required, while for QML properties they are not required.
  For example:
  
• Typing \l{Button::}{clicked()} is a convenient shortcut for displaying a link to Button::clicked() as clicked().

• The space after the \l is not necessary if it is followed with {} as it adds unnecessary whitespace. Instead of \l {Page},
  type either \l{Page} or when there is only one word, \l Page.

Visible Text

Sometimes, to integrate the link name into the sentence or clause, the visible text is necessary.

• The \l{Signals & Slots#Advanced Signals and Slots Usage}{advanced signals and slots example} demonstrates a
  use for QSignalMapper.

Resolving Ambiguous or Colliding Link Names

To disambiguate links, QDoc allows the author to specify the QDoc project and the type of API using
[] after the link command.

For example:

• \l[QML]{EnginioClient} – creates a link to the EnginioClient QML type
• \l[CPP]{EnginioClient} – creates a link to the EnginioClient C++ class
• \l[QtCore]{Qt} – creates a link to the Qt namespace
• \l[QtQml]{Qt} – creates a link to the Qt QML type

Currently only these parameters within [] are recognized:

• QML – for QML types, enumerations, or other definitions in QML modules (specified with \qmlmodule)
• CPP – for C++ APIs
• project or module name

Note: The project name is specifed in the QDoc configuration file (*.qdocconf).

External Pages

To avoid multiple instances of hard-coded HTTP URLs, use the \externalpage command to associate the HTTP URL
with a title.
\l{An Example Page} creates link to http://www.example.com. There is a set of external page in qtbase/doc/global/externalsites
directory. The \externalpage command can be declared in the module documentation directory if it is not used anywhere else in Qt to avoid being
unnecessarily included in other modules’ index files.

Various Guidelines

• It is best if the link title and visible text are in the same line so that they are more readable and easily searched.
• Be mindful about colliding titles by avoiding certain keywords or by creating descriptive page titles.
• Linking directly to the HTML filename should be used as a last resort because the filename can change.
• QDoc searches for articles for links first and if there is a page with the same name in another module, use [] to specify the module name.