How to display information contextually with PySide?

[Tarinaky]

I am unsure how to make a panel or widget or something which appears when users click on something.

I tried making a widget in Qt Designer and using show()/hide() on it but when I perform show()->hide()->show() the second show statement doesn't work, nothing gets drawn.
I also have the issue that inserting it into a gridLayout causes the entire grid to be split 50/50 between the two - I can't set a maximum size for the panel - and removing the widget from the layout does not change the split back to being 100%.

I've searched stackoverflow but all I can find are suggestions that I should show()/hide() which doesn't seem to work as advertised. Does anyone else have any insight? It seems like something which should be easily do-able.

PS: I don't mind how it looks as long as it's usable.