How to save a form from Qt Designer as a standalone app?

Question

I have created a mock-up of a form in Qt Designer, and now I would like to save the form as a (exe?) file so that it can be run on the computer.

Would I use 'Python to Exe' (if so, how)? I don't know much about programming yet.

Qt Designer saves the files with a .ui extension.

Answer 1

To create a standalone app with PyInstaller follow these steps:

1. Save this code as your MyWidget.ui file:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <ui version="4.0">
    <class>MainWindow</class>
    <widget class="QMainWindow" name="MainWindow">
     <property name="geometry">
      <rect>
       <x>0</x>
       <y>0</y>
       <width>147</width>
       <height>125</height>
      </rect>
     </property>
     <property name="windowTitle">
      <string>MainWindow</string>
     </property>
     <widget class="QWidget" name="centralwidget">
      <layout class="QVBoxLayout" name="verticalLayout">
       <item>
        <widget class="QLineEdit" name="lineEdit"/>
       </item>
       <item>
        <widget class="QPushButton" name="pushButton">
         <property name="text">
          <string>Click Me</string>
         </property>
        </widget>
       </item>
      </layout>
     </widget>
     <widget class="QMenuBar" name="menubar">
      <property name="geometry">
       <rect>
        <x>0</x>
        <y>0</y>
        <width>147</width>
        <height>25</height>
       </rect>
      </property>
      <widget class="QMenu" name="menuMenu">
       <property name="title">
        <string>Menu</string>
       </property>
      </widget>
      <addaction name="menuMenu"/>
     </widget>
     <widget class="QStatusBar" name="statusbar"/>
    </widget>
    <resources/>
    <connections/>
   </ui>
   

2. Compile your MyWidget.ui file into Ui_MyWidget.py using pyuic4 with this command from your OS shell command-line:

   pyuic4 "/path/to/MyWidget.ui" -o "Ui_MyWidget.py"
   

   This command will create a Ui_MyWidget.py file in your current directory with this contents:

   # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
   
   # Form implementation generated from reading ui file 'MyWidget.ui'
   #
   # Created: Fri Dec 28 03:45:13 2012
   #      by: PyQt4 UI code generator 4.7.3
   #
   # WARNING! All changes made in this file will be lost!
   
   from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui
   
   class Ui_MainWindow(object):
       def setupUi(self, MainWindow):
           MainWindow.setObjectName("MainWindow")
           MainWindow.resize(147, 125)
           self.centralwidget = QtGui.QWidget(MainWindow)
           self.centralwidget.setObjectName("centralwidget")
           self.verticalLayout = QtGui.QVBoxLayout(self.centralwidget)
           self.verticalLayout.setObjectName("verticalLayout")
           self.lineEdit = QtGui.QLineEdit(self.centralwidget)
           self.lineEdit.setObjectName("lineEdit")
           self.verticalLayout.addWidget(self.lineEdit)
           self.pushButton = QtGui.QPushButton(self.centralwidget)
           self.pushButton.setObjectName("pushButton")
           self.verticalLayout.addWidget(self.pushButton)
           MainWindow.setCentralWidget(self.centralwidget)
           self.menubar = QtGui.QMenuBar(MainWindow)
           self.menubar.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(0, 0, 147, 25))
           self.menubar.setObjectName("menubar")
           self.menuMenu = QtGui.QMenu(self.menubar)
           self.menuMenu.setObjectName("menuMenu")
           MainWindow.setMenuBar(self.menubar)
           self.statusbar = QtGui.QStatusBar(MainWindow)
           self.statusbar.setObjectName("statusbar")
           MainWindow.setStatusBar(self.statusbar)
           self.menubar.addAction(self.menuMenu.menuAction())
   
           self.retranslateUi(MainWindow)
           QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(MainWindow)
   
       def retranslateUi(self, MainWindow):
           MainWindow.setWindowTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("MainWindow", "MainWindow", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
           self.pushButton.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("MainWindow", "Click Me", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
           self.menuMenu.setTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("MainWindow", "Menu", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
   

3. Save this code as your MyWidget.py file:

   #!/usr/bin/env python
   #-*- coding:utf-8 -*-
   
   from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui
   from Ui_MyWidget import Ui_MainWindow
   
   class MyWidget(QtGui.QMainWindow, Ui_MainWindow):
       def __init__(self, parent=None):
          super(MyWidget, self).__init__(parent)
   
          self.setupUi(self)
   
       @QtCore.pyqtSlot()
       def on_pushButton_clicked(self):
           self.lineEdit.setText("A Qt standalone app!")
   
   if __name__ == '__main__':
       import sys
   
       app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
       window = MyWidget()
       window.resize(300, 30)
       window.show()
       sys.exit(app.exec_())
   

4. Check that you can run MyWidget.py without errors (MyWidget.py and Ui_MyWidget.py need to be in the same folder), and once done configuring PyInstaller (checkout the README file) from your OS shell command-line cd into the pyinstaller directory and run this command:

   python pyinstaller.py --onefile '/path/to/MyWidget.py'
   

5. Look for a folder called MyWidget in the pyinstaller folder, inside the dist folder is your standalone Qt app.