title: How to properly size Qt widgets?
body: <p><strong>Main Question</strong></p>
  
  <p>What is the "right" way to give your widgets default sizes and make sure they contract, expand, or remain fixed if there is additional or not enough space to accommodate them?</p>
  
  <p><strong>How I Think Qt Works</strong></p>
  
  <p>After reading the Qt documentation it seems like the sizing algorithm goes something like this...the layout begins by asking its children for their ideal size via the QWidget::sizeHint method. If the layout has additional space or not enough space then it'll determine which widgets to resize based on each widget's sizing policy (QWidget::sizePolicy), minimum size (QWidget::minimumSize), and maximum size (QWidget::maximumSize).</p>
  
  <p><strong>Why isn't there a QWidget::setSizeHint method?</strong></p>
  
  <p>If my understanding is close to being accurate then it would seem all you'd have to do is set the sizeHint, sizePolicy, maximumSize, and minimumSize on each widget and everything  would just work. So why isn't there a setSizeHint method?!?!??!! Sure, every time you use a widget that provides all of the functionality you  need (QTableView, QComboBox, etc) you could extend it and override a single method but that sounds absolutely ridiculous.</p>
  
  <p><strong>One of the sizing issues I'm fighting with.</strong></p>
  
  <p>I've got a QMainWindow with a QDockWidget on the left hand side. The QDockWidget has a QTableView. I'd like to have the QDockWidget/QTableView take up a "reasonable" amount of space on start up and then the user can resize it however small or large they'd like.</p>
  
  <p>Unfortunately, when the application starts up it gives the QDockWidget/QTableView so little space that it requires a horizontal scroll bar. The only way I've found to force it to give it a reasonable amount of width is to set the QDockWidget's minimum width but then it prevents the user from resizing it as small as they might like to.</p>