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Mastering GUI Programming with Python
Mastering GUI Programming with Python

Mastering GUI Programming with Python: Develop impressive cross-platform GUI applications with PyQt

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Mastering GUI Programming with Python

Getting Started with PyQt

Welcome, Python programmer!

Python is a great language for system administration, data analysis, web services, and command-line programs; most likely you've already found Python useful in at least one of those areas. However, there is something truly satisfying about building the kind of GUI-driven application that an end user can readily identify as a program, and this skill should be in the toolbox of any master software developer. In this book, you're going to learn how you can use Python and the Qt framework to develop amazing applications—from simple data-entry forms to powerful multimedia tools.

We'll start our tour of these powerful technologies with the following topics:

  • Introducing Qt and PyQt
  • Creating Hello Qt – our first window
  • Creating a PyQt application template
  • Introducing Qt Designer
...

Technical requirements

For this chapter, and most of the rest of the book, you're going to need the following:

  • A PC running Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS, or a 64-bit flavor of GNU/Linux.
  • Python 3, available from http://www.python.org. The code in this book requires Python 3.7 or later.
  • PyQt 5.12, which you can install from the Python Package Index using this command:
$ pip install --user PyQt5

Check out the following video to see the code in action: http://bit.ly/2M5OUeg

...

Introducing Qt and PyQt

Qt is a cross-platform application framework that was created for use with C++. Available in both commercial and open source licenses (General Public License (GPL) v3 and Lesser General Public License (LGPL) v3, specifically), it is widely used by open source projects such as KDE Plasma and Oracle VirtualBox, commercial software such as Adobe Photoshop Elements and Autodesk Maya, and even embedded software in products from companies such as LG and Panasonic. Qt is currently owned and maintained by the Qt company (https://www.qt.io).

In this book, we're going to be working with the open source release of Qt 5.12. If you're using Windows, macOS, or a major Linux distribution, you should not need to install Qt explicitly; it will be installed automatically when you install PyQt5.

Qt is officially pronounced cute, though many people say, Q T.

...

Creating Hello Qt – our first window

Now that you've learned about Qt5 and PyQt5, it's time to dig in and do some coding. Make sure everything is installed, open your favorite Python editor or IDE, and let's begin!

Create a hello_world.py file in your editor, and enter the following:

from PyQt5 import QtWidgets

We begin by importing the QtWidgets module. This module contains the bulk of the widget classes in Qt, as well as some other important components for GUI creation. We won't need QtGui or QtCore for such a simple application.

Next, we need to create a QApplication object, like this:

app = QtWidgets.QApplication([])

The QApplication object represents the state of our running application, and one must be created before any other Qt widgets can be created. QApplication is supposed to be passed a list of command-line arguments given to our script,...

Creating a PyQt application template

hello_world.py demonstrated the bare minimum of code to get a Qt window on the screen, but it's a bit too simplistic to serve as a model for more complex applications. In this book, we're going to be creating many PyQt applications, so, to make things easier, we're going to compose a basic application template. Future chapters will refer to this template, so make sure to create it exactly as specified.

Open a new file called qt_template.py, and add in these imports:

import sys
from PyQt5 import QtWidgets as qtw
from PyQt5 import QtGui as qtg
from PyQt5 import QtCore as qtc

We'll start with importing sys, so that we can pass QApplication an actual list of script arguments; then we'll import our three main Qt modules. To save some typing, while avoiding star imports, we're going to alias them to abbreviated names...

Introducing Qt Designer

Before we wrap up our introduction to Qt, let's look at a free tool offered by the Qt company that can help us create PyQt applications—Qt Designer.

Qt Designer is a graphical WYSIWYG GUI designer for Qt. Using Qt Designer, you can drag and drop GUI components into an application and configure them without having to write any code at all. While it is certainly an optional tool, you may find it useful for prototyping, or preferable to hand-coding a large and complex GUI. While most of the code in this book will be hand-coded, we will be covering the use of Qt Designer with PyQt in Chapter 2, Building Forms with Qt Widgets, and Chapter 3, Handling Events with Signals and Slots.

Using Qt Designer

...

Summary

In this chapter, you learned about the Qt application framework and the PyQt Python bindings for Qt. We wrote a Hello World application and created a template for building larger Qt applications. Finally, we installed and took our first look at Qt Designer, the GUI editor.

In Chapter 2, Building Forms with Qt Widgets, we'll get familiar with some of the basic Qt widgets and learn how to resize and arrange them in a user interface. You'll then apply that knowledge by designing a calendar application in both code and Qt Designer.

Technical requirements

Creating basic QtWidgets widgets

The QtWidgets module contains dozens of widgets, some simple and standard, others complex and unique. In this section, we're going to go through eight of the most common widgets and their basic usage.

Before starting this section, make a copy of your application template from Chapter 1, Getting Started with PyQt, and save it to a file called widget_demo.py. As we go through the examples, you can add them into your MainWindow.__init__() method to see how the objects work.

QWidget

QWidget is the parent class of all other widgets, so any properties and methods it has will also be available in any other widget. By itself, a QWidget object can be useful as a container for other widgets, a filler to...

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Key benefits

  • Gain comprehensive knowledge of Python GUI development using PyQt 5.12
  • Explore advanced topics including multithreaded programming, 3D animation, and SQL databases
  • Build cross-platform GUIs for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Raspberry Pi

Description

PyQt5 has long been the most powerful and comprehensive GUI framework available for Python, yet there is a lack of cohesive resources available for Python programmers to learn how to use it. This book will be your comprehensive guide to exploring GUI development with PyQt5. You will get started with an introduction to PyQt5, before going on to develop stunning GUIs with modern features. You will learn how to build forms using QWidgets and delve into important aspects of GUI development such as layouts, size policies, and event-driven programming. Moving ahead, you’ll discover PyQt5’s most powerful features through chapters on audio-visual programming with QtMultimedia, database-driven software with QtSQL, and web browsing with QtWebEngine. Next, in-depth coverage of multithreading and asynchronous programming will help you run tasks asynchronously and build high-concurrency processes with ease. In later chapters, you’ll gain insights into QOpenGLWidget, along with mastering techniques for creating 2D graphics with QPainter. You’ll also explore PyQt on a Raspberry Pi and interface it with remote systems using QtNetwork. Finally, you will learn how to distribute your applications using setuptools and PyInstaller. By the end of this book, you will have the skills you need to develop robust GUI applications using PyQt.

Who is this book for?

This book is for programmers who want to create attractive, functional, and powerful GUIs using the Python language. You’ll also find this book useful if you are a student, professional, or anyone who wants to start exploring GUIs. Although prior knowledge of the Python language is assumed, experience with PyQt, Qt, or GUI programming is not required.

What you will learn

  • Get to grips with the inner workings of PyQt5
  • Understand how elements in a GUI application communicate with signals and slots
  • Study techniques for styling an application
  • Explore database-driven applications with the QtSQL module
  • Create 2D graphics with QPainter
  • Delve into 3D graphics with QOpenGLWidget
  • Build network and web-aware applications with QtNetwork and QtWebEngine

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Length: 542 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
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Publication date : May 24, 2019
Length: 542 pages
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Qt
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Table of Contents

23 Chapters
Section 1: Deep Dive into PyQt Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Getting Started with PyQt Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building Forms with QtWidgets Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Handling Events with Signals and Slots Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building Applications with QMainWindow Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating Data Interfaces with Model-View Classes Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Styling Qt Applications Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 2: Working with External Resources Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Working with Audio-Visual Using QtMultimedia Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Networking with QtNetwork Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Exploring SQL with Qt SQL Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Section 3: Unraveling Advanced Qt Implementations Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Multithreading with QTimer and QThread Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating Rich Text with QTextDocument Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating 2D Graphics with QPainter Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating 3D Graphics with QtOpenGL Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Embedding Data Plots with QtCharts Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
PyQt Raspberry Pi Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Web Browsing with QtWebEngine Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Preparing Your Software for Distribution Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Answers to Questions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Upgrading Raspbian 9 to Raspbian 10 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

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Great book. As an author myself, I can appreciate the work it took to organize and present such complex information so well. Glad I bought this book!
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Very well written. Easy to understand.
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User0910 May 08, 2021
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Tout semble trop facile avec ce livre. C'est tellement bien expliqué, que l'on a l'impression de ne faire que des choses simples. Pourtant, lorsque l'on referme un chapitre, l'on s'aperçoit qu'ici, on a fait un petit tableur qui se connecte à une base de donnée; là, on a créé un petit jeu de tir à deux joueurs. Pas mal pour quelques dizaines de ligne de code, et plus que suffisant pour se persuader qu'une fois le livre terminé, on aura fait le tour et intégré les principales ficelles qui nous permettront de prototyper rapidement une interface.Bien sûr, on ne devient pas expert en lisant un livre (le "mastering" que l'on retrouve dans le titre de tellement de livres d'introduction me fait toujours sourire), mais comme pied à l'étrier, ce livre est génial.Attention, le livre a un parti pris, celui de se contenter de la partie "Widget" de PyQT5, et encore, principalement du côté programmatique. Qt Designer n'est utilisé du bout des doigts que lors des trois premiers chapitres; quant à QML, c'est encore plus simple: il n'apparaît même pas à l'index. Pour ma part, c'est exactement ce que je recherchais, et les Widgets remplissent effectivement le contrat (faire des GUI sous Python), mais le lecteur cherchant plus spécifiquement ces techniques-là pour construire des GUI, plutôt que celle choisit par les auteurs, seront déçus.
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