The PyQt6 wheels do not provide tools such as Qt Designer that were included in the old binary installers. This package aims to provide those in a separate package which is useful for developers while the official PyQt6 wheels stay focused on fulfilling the dependencies of PyQt6 applications.
Both Windows and Linux are supported. Adjust paths etc accordingly if applying the explanations below in Linux rather than Windows. macOS support is incomplete but see issue #12 if you want to discuss it.
You will generally install pyqt6-tools using pip install
. In most cases you should be using virtualenv or venv to create isolated environments to install your dependencies in. The above command assumes an env in the directory yourenv
. The ~=6.4
specifies a release compatible with 6.4 which will be the latest version of pyqt6-tools built for PyQt6 6.4. If you are using a different PyQt6 version, specify it instead of 6.4. PyPI keeps a list of all available versions.
- Note:
As of pyqt6-tools v3 the package has been broken down into four pieces. The wrappers remain here but the plugins are located in pyqt6-plugins, some Qt application helpers in qt6-tools, and the applications are in qt6-applications.
A program is provided available as Scripts/pyqt6-tools.exe
. There are subcommands provided for each of Designer, QML Scene, and the QML Test Runner. These wrapper commands provide additional functionality related to launching the underlying programs. A larger set of Qt application are available as subcommands of the Scripts/qt6-tools.exe
program. In both cases, passing --help
will list the available subcommands.
Additionally, each pyqt6-tools
subcommand listed below includes a parameter to run a basic example which can be used to see if the plugins are working. These examples are not intended to be used as examples of good code.
Each subcommand searches up the filesystem tree from your current working directory to find a .env
file and loads it if found. If found, the environment variable DOT_ENV_DIRECTORY
will be set to the directory containing the .env
file. With this extra variable you can specify paths relative to the .env
location.
There alternative ways to call Scripts/pyqt6-tools.exe
, python -m pyqt6_tools
works the same way but allows you to choose the version of python to run the tools with. On Windows if you create a shortcut to pyqt6-tools.exe, it will show a command prompt that stays open for the duration of the launched application. You can address this by using Scripts/pyqt6-toolsw.exe
or pythonw -m pyqt6_tools
.
There is a Scripts/pyqt6-tools.exe designer.exe
entry point that will help fill out PYQTDESIGNERPATH
from either command line arguments or a .env
file. Unknown arguments are passed through to the original Qt Designer program.
Usage: pyqt6-tools designer [OPTIONS]
Options:
-p, --widget-path DIRECTORY Paths to be combined with PYQTDESIGNERPATH
--example-widget-path Include the path for the pyqt6-tools example
button (c:\users\sda\testenv\lib\site-
packages\pyqt6_plugins)
--designer-help Pass through to get Designer's --help
--test-exception-dialog Raise an exception to check the exception
dialog functionality.
--qt-debug-plugins / --no-qt-debug-plugins
Set QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS=1
--help Show this message and exit.
If you want to view the generated code from within Designer, you can run Scripts/pyqt6-tools.exe installuic
and it will copy pyuic6.exe
such that Designer will use it and show you generated Python code. Note that this will enable viewing using the C++ menu item while the Python menu item will be broken. Without having made this adjustment, the C++ option shows C++ code while the Python option shows PySide2 code. pyqt6
must already be installed or this script will be unable to find the original pyuic6.exe
to copy.
In addition to the standard features of the official Designer plugin, this provides an exception dialog for your widget's Python code. Otherwise Designer in Windows silently crashes on Python exceptions.
The QML plugin is also included. In the future a tool may be provided to handle copying of the plugin to each directory where it is needed. For now this must be done manually.
site-packages/pyqt6_tools/Qt/bin/plugins/pyqt6qmlplugin.dll
Usage: pyqt6-tools qmlscene [OPTIONS]
Options:
-p, --qml2-import-path DIRECTORY
Paths to be combined with QML2_IMPORT_PATH
--qmlscene-help Pass through to get QML scene's --help
--qt-debug-plugins / --no-qt-debug-plugins
Set QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS=1
--run-qml-example Run the pyqt6-tools QML example
--help Show this message and exit.
Usage: pyqt6-tools qmltestrunner [OPTIONS]
Options:
-p, --qml2-import-path DIRECTORY
Paths to be combined with QML2_IMPORT_PATH
--qmltestrunner-help Pass through to get QML test runner's --help
--qt-debug-plugins / --no-qt-debug-plugins
Set QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS=1
--test-qml-example Test the pyqt6-tools QML example
--help Show this message and exit.
Thanks to MacStadium for providing me with a macOS system to develop and test out the final pyqt6-tools platform. This is still 'in work'. See issue #12.