Absolute Beginner

[ChrisOfBristol]

I have tried out a few GUI Designers and am most impressed with Qt, so I am using it to create a very simple GUI, linking the .ui form into the Python program.
I have succeeded in making buttons and radiobuttons work*, but can't work out how to write the actions for the rest of my GUI - a scrollbox and the menubar File/Open,Quit and Help/Help,About.

There are examples under the Documentation heading but I think they are all written in C and I wish to use Python. I have trawled through loads of helpful websites, but most people are writing for when pyuic has been used to create a Python script from the ui file. I've had a look in that file for ideas, but don't know which statements in it would be needed and what else to add.

Is there a basic tutorial which would introduce me to this?

[SGaist]

Hi and welcome to devnet,

You might be interested by this page

[ChrisOfBristol]

Thanks SGaist, I think I have looked at all of those now. I have given up on trying to find much information on importing the ui form. The reason I wanted to use that method was because it avoided having to fill my program with the gui statements which would be needed if I used pyuic4 to convert it into Python statements. However I have discovered that I can import the Python file into my program which overcomes the problem, so I have switched to using that method and am making progress.

I have worked out how to use signals and slots to link the widgets to actions which create code, which is more or less all I need to know:

bq. Sender_____Signal______Receiver___ Slot
actionQuit___triggered()__Form_____close()

All I'm confused about, is what to do when there is no suitable receiver+action, in this example I want /Help/About to show a message box, but there is no messagebox widget, so I will have to do that in my Python program.

bq. Sender______Signal_______ Receiver___Slot
actionAbout___triggered()___ <receiver>__<slot>  

pyuic4 has created an object (if that's the right term):

self.menuHelp.addAction(self.actionAbout)

All I now need to do is write an action in my Python program like:

 def actionAbout(self):
               print 'About has activated'

This doesn't work, but I think it's something like right...

I'm sure I'm nearly there, as I am capable in other programming languages, it's the starting off that's hard!

[ChrisOfBristol]

it's taken me all day to work it out, but all I needed was to change the first line 1) to:

    self.actionAbout.triggered.connect(self.actionAbout)

I'm away now...

[SGaist]

Any other problem ?

[ChrisOfBristol]

@SGaist Yes! I have now created and published a simple app. I will be making a few improvements to it.

I have been wondering what the pros and cons are for choosing between importing uic to load the GUI.ui or using pyuic4 to convert the GUI.ui into a .py file.
The first method is simpler for testing, but the second creates a .pyc file after the first run, so I wonder if that loads the app quicker. It's difficult to do a comparison as other factors are involved. Speeding up the loading would be helpful, are there are other advantages?

[SGaist]

Unless your application should be able to create dynamically custom user interface based on ui files, just use pyuic4

[ChrisOfBristol]

@SGaist Is there any disadvantage to sticking with the first method though?

[SGaist]

I'd say you have to ensure that you also deploy the ui file properly so that it can be found by your application