Simple Calendar Using Python and Qt Designer

As we all know , Python is an easy-to-use and evolving language that is lovely to use.Python saves you a lot of development time.

Qt - a cross-platform framework originally developed by Trolltech ( now acquired by Nokia ) - needs no introduction.It is the parent of KDE and SymbianOS.It is not a mere GUI toolkit , but an entire stack of technologies.

In this tutorial , i just wanted to show you how to make a working Calendar application in 2 minutes.

Make sure you install PyQt in your computer.The installation will provide a designing tool - QtDesigner .

1. Open QtDesigner
2. Choose New -> Widget . Click "Create".Now a form window will open
3. In the side pane , many GUI objects ( widgets ,views etc) are shown . Drag the Calender widget onto the form.
4. That's it . Resize it and change its properties (in right side pnae ) as per your requirement and save the form and close Designer.

Now the coding part....

This is not difficult as you would imagine.The PyQt devlopers have provided us a very convenient tool - pyuic4 - that would convert our Designs into Python code!

1. Open Command prompt and go to the directory containing the design (.ui file)
2. Type this : pyuic4 yourdesign.ui > target.py In my case , pyuic4 calendar.ui > calendar.py .
3. Open the python file ( calendar.py ) , you can see all your design specs have been converted into code.

Now, you need a python file to show your application.Let's do that....

This is the application launch file (calendar_show.py).

Explanation:

Setting up the UI just takes about 5 lines of code.

Headers:

Ui_Form is the class in the calendar.py file ( created by pyuic4 )

QtGui and QtCore - the core modules of Qt , are imported.

Class:

Your class should inherit the main container. It can be a MainWindow or Dialog or Widget . In our case , a Widget . Thus QtGui.QWidget is inherited.

Then initialize the parent class and then setup the UI using setupUi() method.

Code:

import sys
from PyQt4 import QtGui,QtCore
from calender import Ui_Form

class startCalender(QtGui.QWidget):
  def __init__(self,parent=None):
    QtGui.QWidget.__init__(self,parent)
    self.ui=Ui_Form()
    self.ui.setupUi(self)

if __name__=="__main__":
  app=QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
  cal=startCalender()
  cal.show()
  sys.exit(app.exec_())

Launching:

You have to create a QApplication object to run any Qt application.Then create a Calender object and finally show the app using show() method.

Launch the app by typing "python calender_show.py" in command prompt.Your application is now up and running.

This app does absolutely nothing , but i have just shown how it can be done.If any problem/doubts , ask me . Next tutorial will be a simple web browser in PyQt.