Python GUI programming with pyside

• Only need to execute few line to perform a task.. GUI Graphical User Interface • Easier for user to view and control your application... • Qt & wxWidgets are both well known C++ GUI

Python GUI programming with

PySide

Speaker: BigLittle

Date: 2013/03/04

CLI vs GUI

CLI (Command Line Interface)

• Take less resources

• User have much more

control of their system

• Only need to execute few

line to perform a task

GUI (Graphical User Interface)

• Easier for user to view and

control your application

• Ability of multitasking

About Python + GUI

• Some GUI library for Python:

• Tkinter - Python's standard GUI package (Tcl/Tk)

• wxPython - A Python extension module that wraps wxWidgets library

• PyQt4 - A Python binding of the cross-platform GUI toolkit Qt

• PySide - A Python binding of the cross-platform GUI toolkit Qt

• Qt & wxWidgets are both well known C++ GUI library:

• They are free and open source

• They are cross-platform and support Unicode

• They have full documentation and community support

Why Qt / PySide?

• Pros:

• It’s NOT MFC style

• Easy to build up by QtDesigner or text coding

• Intuitive SIGNAL / SLOT mechanism

• Supports I18N (Internationalization)

• LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License)

• The API is more Pythonic

• Cons:

• Qt is not written in standard C++ library

• Application size is big

• blabla…… I don’t care, and you?

A Simple Program (cont’d)

• test.py

Import PySide module here

A Simple Program (cont’d)

• test.py

Inherit class “QMainWindow”

set it’s title then show itself

A Simple Program (cont’d)

• test.py

Create MyWindow instance

Contains the main event loop

A Simple Program (cont’d)

• test.py

Trigger when execute test.py

Actually, the easiest way may be:

app = QApplication(sys.argv) main = QMainWindow() main.setWindowTitle(“First GUI”) main.show()

sys.exit(app.exec_())

Where Is Other Stuff?

• Just like a HD, you must format it then you can put in your data

• HD  Current Window

• Format  QLayout

• Data  QWidget

• QLayout and QWidget are the

most basic classes that make up

your GUI

QMainWindow is a subclass of QWidget

Right figure shows the default configuration

QWidget

in the QGroupBox?

Let’s Put Something On It

How To Activate It?

• Now you have a “skin” of your application Let’s make it activated

For example, push “Big” button then type “Bigger” on the editor

• In Qt, trigger & response are called SIGNAL & SLOT

SIGNAL / SLOT

• self.btn1 clicked connect ( self.typebig )

• The advantage of SIGNAL / SLOT is the caller does not have to know anything about the receiver and vice versa

• Any function could be a SLOT

• One can connect several SLOT to a SIGNAL and vice versa

• A common usage: Real-time check for input contents

Exercise…

• Try to modify the simple program to MD5 Encrypter

Exercise… (cont’d)

• You need import hashlib first

Use Advanced Module

• Matplotlib - A Python plotting library (Based on PySide!)

• SciPy - An open source library of scientific tools for Python

• VTK - Visual Tool Kit (TVTK, Mayavi)

Much Better Than Excel…

• Source code: http://matplotlib.org/examples/pylab_examples/demo_agg_filter.html

Something To Be Continued

• Decorations:

• Take advantages of groups, tabs, tooltips, …, etc

• Add some icons, sounds or visual effects

• Maintains:

• Debug, debug and debug

• Packing/Release:

• PyInstaller - Cross platform

• cx_Freeze - Cross platform

• py2exe - Window only

CurveExpert

(PyInstaller)

BitTorrent

(py2exe)

Create Your Own GUI App!

Summary

• GUI programming could help you interactively control the

application and report visualized final data Every programmer should familiar with its basic concept

• Programming in PySide = Programming in OOP All components

in library can be easily adapted and modified Try to use them as much as possible

• There are many “splendid” functions like graphics, animation, drag & drop…, etc for GUI programming You can improve the user experience by these, but remember to pay more attention

on the performance of your application

Thanks for your attention