Book Image

Mastering GUI Programming with Python

By : Alan D. Moore
5 (2)
Book Image

Mastering GUI Programming with Python

5 (2)
By: Alan D. Moore

Overview of this book

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.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Deep Dive into PyQt
8
Section 2: Working with External Resources
12
Section 3: Unraveling Advanced Qt Implementations
22
Upgrading Raspbian 9 to Raspbian 10

Making a simple chart

In Chapter 12, Creating 2D Graphics with QPainter, we created a CPU activity graph using the Qt graphics framework and the psutil library. While that approach to building a chart worked fine, it took a lot of work to create a rudimentary chart that lacked simple niceties such as axis labels, a title, or a legend. The QtChart library is also based on the Qt graphics framework, but simplifies the creation of a variety of feature-complete charts.

To demonstrate how it works, we're going to build a more complete system monitoring program that includes several charts derived from data provided by the psutil library.

Setting up the GUI

To begin our program, copy the Qt application template from Chapter...