Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt

This book teaches how to write GUI applications using the Python programming language and the Qt application development framework. The only essential prior knowledge is that you can program in some object-oriented programming language, such as C++, C#, Java, or of course, Python itself. For the rich text chapter, some familiarity with HTML and with regular expressions is assumed,and the databases and threading chapters assume some basic knowledge of those topics. A knowledge of GUI programming is not required, since all the key concepts are covered. The book will be useful to people who program professionally as part of their job, whether as full-time software developers, or those from other disciplines, including scientists and engineers, who need to do some programming in support of their work. It is also suitable for undergraduate and post-graduate students, particularly those doing courses or research that includes a substantial computing element. The exercises (with solutions) are provided especially to help students. Python is probably the easiest to learn and nicest scripting language in widespread use,and Qt is probably the best library for developing GUI applications. The combination of Python and Qt, “PyQt”, makes it possible to develop applications on any supported platform and run them unchanged on all the supported platforms—for example, all modern versions of Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and most Unix-based systems. No compilation is required thanks to Python being interpreted, and no source code changes to adapt to different operating systems are required thanks to Qt abstracting away the platformspecific details. We only have to copy the source file or files to a target machine that has both Python and PyQt installed and the application will run. If you are new to Python:Welcome! You are about to discover a language that is clear to read and write, and that is concise without being cryptic. Python supports many programming paradigms, but because our focus is on GUI programming, we will take an object-oriented approach everywhere except in the very early chapters.