Can I use the search box control seen in Windows Explorer in my own application?

Question

Can I use this search box control seen in Windows Explorer in my own Qt/C++ application? Or is it a custom control I'd have to implement manually?

Answer 1

You can use the Windows Search Service to access the search functionality; I'm not sure you can embed the actual control that Explorer uses in your own app, but you could certainly create your own that works the same way.

Answer 2

I haven't seen this kind of control, however in Qt it's easy to implement it manually. You may follow this tutorial: http://labs.qt.nokia.com/2007/06/06/lineedit-with-a-clear-button/ and just replace a clear icon with a search one (and change slot from clear() to something which performs desired search, of course).