How can I prevent a PyQt widget from getting covered-up?

Question

I am creating an interface that consists of a terminal embedded in a PyQt GUI with some buttons alongside it for running commands in that terminal. When I run my code, I think parts of the GUI are getting created correctly, but the terminal widget is getting covered-up. How can I prevent this from happening?

import sys
from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui

class embedded_terminal(QtGui.QWidget):

    def __init__(self):

        QtGui.QWidget.__init__(self)
        self._processes = []
        self.resize(800, 800)

        # set grid layout

        grid = QtGui.QGridLayout()

        # layout group for buttons

        group_buttons = QtGui.QGroupBox()
        vbox = QtGui.QVBoxLayout()
        # define buttons
        button_list = self.command_button(
            title   = "ls",
            command = "ls"
        )
        button_terminate = QtGui.QPushButton("terminate")
        button_terminate.clicked.connect(lambda: self.terminate())
        # style buttons and add buttons to layout
        buttons = []
        buttons.append(button_list)
        buttons.append(button_terminate)
        for button in buttons:
            self.set_button_style(button)
            vbox.addWidget(button)
        vbox.addStretch(1)
        group_buttons.setLayout(vbox)

        # layout group for terminal

        group_terminal = QtGui.QGroupBox()
        group_terminal.setLayout(vbox)
        vbox = QtGui.QVBoxLayout()
        # terminal
        self.terminal = QtGui.QWidget(self)
        vbox.addWidget(self.terminal)
        vbox.addStretch(1)
        group_terminal.setLayout(vbox)

        # add layout groups to grid layout
        grid.addWidget(group_buttons, 0, 0)
        grid.addWidget(group_terminal, 0, 1)
        self.setLayout(grid)

        self.start_process(
            "xterm",
                [
                    "-fn",
                    "-misc-fixed-*-*-*-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-*-*",
                    "-into",
                    str(self.terminal.winId()),
                    "-e",
                    "tmux",
                    "new",
                    "-s",
                    "session1"
                ]
        )

    def start_process(
        self,
        program,
        options
        ):
        child = QtCore.QProcess()
        self._processes.append(child)
        child.start(program, options)

    def run_command(
        self,
        command = "ls"
        ):
        program = "tmux"
        options = []
        options.extend(["send-keys", "-t", "session1:0"])
        options.extend([command])
        options.extend(["Enter"])
        self.start_process(program, options)

    def command_button(
        self,
        title   = None,
        command = None
        ):
        button = QtGui.QPushButton(title)
        button.clicked.connect(lambda: self.run_command(command = command))
        return button

    def set_button_style(
        self,
        button
        ):
        # Set button style.
        button.setStyleSheet(
            """
            color: #{color1};
            background-color: #{color2};
            border: 1px solid #{color1};
            """.format(
                color1 = "3861aa",
                color2 = "ffffff"
            )
        )
        # Set button dimensions.
        button.setFixedSize(
            300,
            60
        )

    def terminate(self):
        program = "tmux"
        options = []
        options.extend(["send-keys", "-t", "session1:0"])
        options.extend(["killall tmux"])
        options.extend(["Enter"])
        self.start_process(program, options)
        QtGui.QApplication.instance().quit()

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

Alexander Lutsenko · Answer 1 · 2015-07-19T19:43:38.090

Sorry about my English.

You have a bug: add a layout before creating it. Thus, you attach to group_terminal the same vbox as you have attached to group_buttons.

# layout group for terminal
group_terminal = QtGui.QGroupBox()
group_terminal.setLayout(vbox) # <- old one
vbox = QtGui.QVBoxLayout()

Moreover, Qt knows nothing about size of your xterm window. Seems like you have to specify it manually. This code works fine:

group_terminal = QtGui.QGroupBox()
vbox = QtGui.QVBoxLayout()
group_terminal.setLayout(vbox)

# terminal
self.terminal = QtGui.QWidget()
self.terminal.setFixedSize(730, 440)

How can I prevent a PyQt widget from getting covered-up?

1 Answers1