Python code generation with pyside-uic

Question

How can I generate python code from a QtDesigner file ? I found pyside-uic but I can't find an example for the syntax. I run win7 and pythonxy with spyder.

Answer 1

pyside-uic is more or less identical to pyuic4, as such the man page specifies:

Usage:
        pyside-uic [options] <ui-file>

Options:
    --version
        show program's version number and exit

    -h,--help
        show this help message and exit

    -oFILE,--output=FILE
        write generated code to FILE instead of stdout

    -x,--execute
        generate extra code to test and display the class

    -d,--debug
        show debug output

    -iN,--ident=N
        set indent width to N spaces, tab if N is 0 (default: 4)

I usually use it like this:

pyside-uic -o output.py input.ui

Answer 2

Just tried Pyside's QUILoader, works fine:

from PySide import QtGui  
from PySide import QtCore
from PySide import QtUiTools

class MyWidget(QtGui.QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self, *args):  
       apply(QtGui.QMainWindow.__init__, (self,) + args)

       loader = QtUiTools.QUiLoader()
       file = QtCore.QFile("pyside_ui_qtdesigner_form_test.ui")
       file.open(QtCore.QFile.ReadOnly)
       self.myWidget = loader.load(file, self)
       file.close()

       self.setCentralWidget(self.myWidget)

if __name__ == '__main__':  
   import sys  
   import os
   print("Running in " + os.getcwd() + " .\n")

   app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)  

   win  = MyWidget()  
   win.show()

   app.connect(app, QtCore.SIGNAL("lastWindowClosed()"),
               app, QtCore.SLOT("quit()"))
   app.exec_()

I used Eclipse and QTDesigner to create the .ui file (right-click on module, "New -> Other..", choose "Qt Designer -> Qt Designer Form"). No explicit uic call is needed.

Answer 3

import pysideuic
import xml.etree.ElementTree as xml
from cStringIO import StringIO

def loadUiType(uiFile):
    """
    Pyside "loadUiType" command like PyQt4 has one, so we have to convert the 
    ui file to py code in-memory first and then execute it in a special frame
    to retrieve the form_class.
    """
    parsed = xml.parse(uiFile)
    widget_class = parsed.find('widget').get('class')
    form_class = parsed.find('class').text

    with open(uiFile, 'r') as f:
        o = StringIO()
        frame = {}

        pysideuic.compileUi(f, o, indent=0)
        pyc = compile(o.getvalue(), '<string>', 'exec')
        exec pyc in frame

        # Fetch the base_class and form class based on their type
        # in the xml from designer
        form_class = frame['Ui_%s'%form_class]
        base_class = eval('QtGui.%s'%widget_class)

    return form_class, base_class

You can use this way to load the UI and can also get form_class as well as the base class as return type... but if you do not want to convert, otherwise Yes the following is the correct way.

pyside-uic.exe MyWindow.ui -o MyWindow.py

Answer 4

pyside-uic.exe MyWindow.ui -o MyWindow.py 

is what I've been doing and it's working fine (as far as I know)

Answer 5

QUiLoader class will do the job without making an intermediate file.

http://www.pyside.org/docs/pyside/PySide/QtUiTools/QUiLoader.html

Answer 6

Using QtUiTools (as suggested in another answer) is currently discouraged by the PySide team.

Read the full story here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/pyside/_s1HPe6XTZs

Answer 7

Read the documentation. In this particular case, http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/static/Docs/PyQt4/pyqt4ref.html#pyuic4:

The pyuic4 utility is a command line interface to the uic module. The command has the following syntax:

pyuic4 [options] .ui-file

The full set of command line options is:
-h, --help  A help message is written to stdout.
--version   The version number is written to stdout.
-i N, --indent=N
    The Python code is generated using an indentation of N spaces. If N is 0 then a tab is used. The default is 4.
-o FILE, --output=FILE
    The Python code generated is written to the file FILE.
-p, --preview   The GUI is created dynamically and displayed. No Python code is generated.
-w, --pyqt3-wrapper
    The generated Python code includes a small wrapper that allows the GUI to be used in the same way as it is used in PyQt v3.
-x, --execute   The generated Python code includes a small amount of additional code that creates and displays the GUI when it is executes as a standalone application.
--from-imports  Resource modules are imported using from . import rather than a simple import.

Answer 8

Look at C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\PySide\scripts\uic.py (or wherever you have python installed). If you look at that script you can see the options labelled and described as in the man page (Which I don't know how to view properly on windows. Tips appreciated.) here http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/man1/pyside-uic.1.html

I got confused for a while trying to look at C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\pysideuic\pyside-uic.1 as I thought that must be the file that is being called. Even trying to view that as a manual page is impossible for me because of all the extra characters. You can't learn syntax by trying to guess at which characters are extra and which ones aren't!

On windows you can automate this with a batch file of course by saving a text file with the above mentioned line(below for reference) with .bat extension like uic_generator.bat.

pyside-uic MyWindow.ui -o MyWindow.py