In the previous chapter, we saw how to create windows using widgets. Most of the GUI applications that we use today are main window-styled applications, which have a menu bar, toolbars, a status bar, a central widget, and optional dock widgets. Generally, an application will have a single main window and a collection of dialogs and widgets to serve the purpose of the application. A main window provides a framework to build an application's user interface. In this chapter, we shall discuss the creation of a main window application with its predefined components. We will also discuss layout management in a windowed application.

PySide provides a class, named PySide.QtGui.QMainWindow, that is derived from QWidget and its related classes for main-window management. QMainWindow has its own layout to which you can add toolbars, a menu bar, a status bar, dock widgets, and a central widget. The layout description of a main window is as shown in the following...