Qt: How to implement simple internal drag&drop for reordering items in QListView using a custom model

I have a QList of custom structs and i'm using custom model class (subclass of QAbstractListModel) to display those structs in 1-dimensional QListView. I have overriden the methodsrowCount, flags and data to construct a display string from the struct elements.

Now i would like to enable internal drag&drop to be able to reorder the items in the list by dragging them and dropping them between some other items, but this task seems unbeliavably complicated. What exactly do i need to override and what parameters do i need to set? I tried a lot of things, i tried

view->setDragEnabled( true );
view->setAcceptDrops( true );
view->setDragDropMode( QAbstractItemView::InternalMove );
view->setDefaultDropAction( Qt::MoveAction );

I tried

Qt::DropActions supportedDropActions() const override {
    return Qt::MoveAction;
}
Qt::ItemFlags flags( const QModelIndex & index ) const override{
    return QAbstractItemModel::flags( index ) | Qt::ItemIsDragEnabled;
}

I tried implementing insertRows and removeRows, but it still doesn't work.

I haven't found a single example of a code doing exactly that. The official documentation goes very deeply into how view/model pattern works and how to make drag&drops from external apps or from other widgets, but i don't want any of that. I only want simple internal drag&drop for manual reordering of the items in that one list view.

Can someone please help me? Or i'll get nuts from this.

EDIT: adding insertRows/removeRows implementation on request:

bool insertRows( int row, int count, const QModelIndex & parent ) override
{
    QAbstractListModel::beginInsertRows( parent, row, row + count - 1 );

    for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
        AObjectListModel<Object>::objectList.insert( row, Object() );

    QAbstractListModel::endInsertRows();
    return true;
}

bool removeRows( int row, int count, const QModelIndex & parent ) override
{
    if (row < 0 || row + count > AObjectListModel<Object>::objectList.size())
        return false;

    QAbstractListModel::beginRemoveRows( parent, row, row + count - 1 );

    for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
        AObjectListModel<Object>::objectList.removeAt( row );

    QAbstractListModel::endRemoveRows();
    return true;
}

objectList is QList where Object is template parameter.

When you want to reorganize items in a custom model, you have to implement all needed actions: - how to insert and remove a row - how to get and set data - how to serialize items (build the mimedata) - how to unserialize items

An example with a custom model with a QStringList as data source:

The minimal implementation of the model should be:

class CustomModel: public QAbstractListModel
{
public:
    CustomModel()
    {
        internalData = QString("abcdefghij").split("");
    }
    int rowCount(const QModelIndex &parent) const
    {
        return internalData.length();
    }
    QVariant data(const QModelIndex &index, int role) const
    {
        if (!index.isValid() || index.parent().isValid())
            return QVariant();
        if (role != Qt::DisplayRole)
            return QVariant();
        return internalData.at(index.row());
    }
private:
    QStringList internalData;   
};

We have to add the way to insert/remove rows and set the data:

    bool setData(const QModelIndex &index, const QVariant &value, int role = Qt::DisplayRole)
    {
        if (role != Qt::DisplayRole)
            return false;
        internalData[index.row()] = value.toString();
        return true;
    }
    bool insertRows(int row, int count, const QModelIndex &parent)
    {
        if (parent.isValid())
            return false;
        for (int i = 0; i != count; ++i)
            internalData.insert(row + i, "");
        return true;
    }
    bool removeRows(int row, int count, const QModelIndex &parent)
    {
        if (parent.isValid())
            return false;
        beginRemoveRows(parent, row, row + count - 1);
        for (int i = 0; i != count; ++i)
            internalData.removeAt(row);
        endRemoveRows();
        return true;
    }

For the drag and drop part:

First, we need to define a mime type to define the way we will deserialize the data:

    QStringList mimeTypes() const
    {
        QStringList types;
        types << CustomModel::MimeType;
        return types;
    }

Where CustomModel::MimeType is a constant string like "application/my.custom.model"

The method canDropMimeData will be used to check if the dropped data are legit or not. So, we can discard external data:

    bool canDropMimeData(const QMimeData *data,
        Qt::DropAction action, int /*row*/, int /*column*/, const QModelIndex& /*parent*/)
    {
        if ( action != Qt::MoveAction || !data->hasFormat(CustomModel::MimeType))
            return false;
        return true;
    }

Then, we can create our mime data based on the internal data:

    QMimeData* mimeData(const QModelIndexList &indexes) const
    {
        QMimeData* mimeData = new QMimeData;
        QByteArray encodedData;

        QDataStream stream(&encodedData, QIODevice::WriteOnly);

        for (const QModelIndex &index : indexes) {
            if (index.isValid()) {
                QString text = data(index, Qt::DisplayRole).toString();
                stream << text;
            }
        }
        mimeData->setData(CustomModel::MimeType, encodedData);
        return mimeData;
    }

Now, we have to handle the dropped data. We have to deserialize the mime data, insert a new row to set the data at the right place (for a Qt::MoveAction, the old row will be automaticaly removed. That why we had to implement removeRows):

bool dropMimeData(const QMimeData *data,
        Qt::DropAction action, int row, int column, const QModelIndex &parent)
    {
        if (!canDropMimeData(data, action, row, column, parent))
            return false;

        if (action == Qt::IgnoreAction)
            return true;
        else if (action  != Qt::MoveAction)
            return false;

        QByteArray encodedData = data->data("application/my.custom.model");
        QDataStream stream(&encodedData, QIODevice::ReadOnly);
        QStringList newItems;
        int rows = 0;

        while (!stream.atEnd()) {
            QString text;
            stream >> text;
            newItems << text;
            ++rows;
        }

        insertRows(row, rows, QModelIndex());
        for (const QString &text : qAsConst(newItems))
        {
            QModelIndex idx = index(row, 0, QModelIndex());
            setData(idx, text);
            row++;
        }

        return true;
    }

If you want more info on the drag and drop system in Qt, take a look at the documentation.