The Insider's Best-Practice Guide to Rapid PyQt 4 GUI Development

Whether you're building GUI prototypes or full-fledged cross-platform GUI applications with native look-and-feel, PyQt 4 is your fastest, easiest, most powerful solution. Qt expert Mark Summerfield has written the definitive best-practice guide to PyQt 4 development.

With Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt you'll learn how to build efficient GUI applications that run on all major operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and many versions of Unix, using the same source code for all of them. Summerfield systematically introduces every core GUI development technique: from dialogs and windows to data handling; from events to printing; and more. Through the book's realistic examples you'll discover a completely new PyQt 4-based programming approach, as well as coverage of many new topics, from PyQt 4's rich text engine to advanced model/view and graphics/view programming. Every key concept is illuminated with realistic, downloadable examples—all tested on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux with Python 2.5, Qt 4.2, and PyQt 4.2, and on Windows and Linux with Qt 4.3 and PyQt 4.3.

Coverge includes

• Python basics for every PyQt developer: data types, data structures, control structures, classes, modules, and more
• Core PyQt GUI programming techniques: dialogs, main windows, and custom file formats
• Using Qt Designer to design user interfaces, and to implement and test dialogs, events, the Clipboard, and drag-and-drop
• Building custom widgets: Widget Style Sheets, composite widgets, subclassing, and more
• Making the most of Qt 4.2's new graphics/view architecture
• Connecting to databases, executing SQL queries, and using form and table views
• Advanced model/view programming: custom views, generic delegates, and more
• Implementing online help, internationalizing applications, and using PyQt's networking and multithreading facilities

Table of Contents

Part I: Python Programming

Chapter 1. Data Types and Data Structures

Chapter 2. Control Structures

Chapter 3. Classes and Modules

Part II: Basic GUI Programming

Chapter 4. Introduction to GUI Programming

Chapter 5. Dialogs

Chapter 6. Main Windows

Chapter 7. Using Qt Designer

Chapter 8. Data Handling and Custom File Formats

Part Ill: Intermediate GUI Programming

Chapter 9. Layouts and Multiple Documents

Chapter 10. Events, the Clipboard, and Drag and Drop

Chapter 11. Custom Widgets

Chapter 12. Item-Based Graphics

Chapter 13. Rich Text and Printing

Chapter 14. Model/View Programming

Chapter 15. Databases

Part IV: Advanced GUI Programming

Chapter 16. Advanced Model/View Programming

Chapter 17. Online Help and Internationalization

Chapter 18. Networking

Chapter 19. Multithreading

Appendix A. Installing

Appendix B. Selected PyQt Widgets

Appendix C. Selected PyQt Class Hierarchies

From the Author

All the book's examples can be downloaded from the book's web page. (Amazon don't allow URLs so google for "qtrac" to find the page.) Note also that versions of the examples are also available for Python 3.1 and the PyQt's API 2--the book uses Python 2 and API 1, but the differences aren't that great as explained at the bottom of the book's web page.

About the Author

Mark Summerfield works as an independent trainer and consultant specializing in C++, Qt, Python, and PyQt. He was Trolltech’s documentation manager from 2000 to 2004, was the founding editor of Qt Quarterly, Trolltech’s customer newsletter, and coauthored C++ GUI Programming with Qt 3 and C++ GUI Programming with Qt 4.