PyQt4 Lab 1

© D. Thiebaut 2009.

This tutorial is a quick introduction to PyQt, a binding of Python with the Qt4 GUI library. Qt was originally made by Trolltech, now bought by Nokia, and is a powerful platform for developing GUI applications in C++ or Java for Windows, MacOS, and Linux, as well as embedded platforms.

This tutorial shows the basic steps for installing PyQt on a Windows XP machine (sorry, still not using and resisting using Vista), and creating a simple app.

Installing PyQt

• First install SIP which allows binding of C++ and python program. SIP can be found at http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/sip/download. The last step of the installation gave me an error message, but this was for something relatively trivial which shouldn't influence the operation of the package.

• Then download and install PyQt4, also from Riverbank: http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/download . As of today (2/1/09), this installs Python 2.6 on your system. It may be different for you depending on when you install this package.

• A test for verifying that your installation works

• • Go Start/All Programs/Python 2.6/IDLE (again, it may be a different version for you)
  • If the python shell window is not open, open it up (Run/Python Shell)
  • Open a Python Shell window, and type

import PyQt4

If you do not get an error message, then PyQt4 is installed correctly.