Qt for Python/GettingStarted

Official documentation

Refer to the official docs to start building and using Qt for Python.

Using Qt Creator as a project explorer

Qt Creator 4.0+ can be used to open the PySide and Shiboken CMakeLists.txt files as projects, and thus provide usual IDE features for developing PySide - project file navigation, code completion (C++ only), following symbols under cursor (C++ only), syntax highlighting, locator usage, debugging, etc.

Currently, there is a limitation that Shiboken has to be built first using the terminal because the installed shiboken CMake packages will have to be specified for the PySide project in Qt Creator.

The steps for opening the projects in Qt Creator are:

1. Open pyside-setup/sources/shiboken2/CMakeLists.txt and specify a 5.12+ Qt Kit to be used
2. Build the project as usual (by pressing the build icon for instance)
3. Open pyside-setup/sources/pyside2/CMakeLists.txt and specify the same 5.12+ Qt Kit
4. Go to the projects tab, and under the Build / CMake section find the Shiboken2_DIR setting. You have to specify the path to the folder where the Shiboken CMake package was installed when you compiled Shiboken from the terminal·
5. An example path under macOS is /Users/user/Dev/pyside2-setup/pyside_install/py3.6-qt5.12.1-64bit-debug/lib/cmake/Shiboken2-2.0.0. The path has to be adjusted depending on the user folder name, the version of python and qt, etc
6. (Optional) On MacOS you also have to set the ALTERNATIVE_QT_INCLUDE_DIR setting to the Qt kit include path (e.g. /Users/user/Dev/qt511_source/include)
7. Apply the CMake configuration changes (by pressing the button), and you should be able to build PySide

Now you can use the project explorer to look through the source cpp files, python files, use the locator feature to open files and file classes / methods, and other features that Qt Creator provides.

Troubleshooting / Known Issues

• Qt 5.9 does not work with OpenSSL 1.1
  • When doing a custom Qt build (some unspecified versions for now), It is necessary to have an OpenSSL version of 1.0.x, since there are compatibility issues with newer versions of OpenSSL (see details)
• PySide2 looks at the system installation if the local Qt version does not have a required module
  • The only workaround is to uninstall any module from the system, then PySide2 can look at only the Qt path currently being use.
• Qt packages that directly link to OpenSSL (as opposed to runtime discovery) are not currently supported.
• Make sure that the Python environment location where the PySide2 package will be installed is writable (otherwise you might get various permission denied errors). The install location can be found with 99% probability by running:

python -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print(get_python_lib())"

• Building failing because graphviz wasn't found. If you're using pyenv and installed it using pip, try to install it using your package manager:

  dnf install graphviz.x86_64 #Fedora
  

• 20220727 Urgent update: If you build PySide with a custom built Python, you should build python with the following options:

  PYTHON_CONFIGURE_OPTS="--enable-shared --with-trace-refs"
  

  For example:

  PYTHON_CONFIGURE_OPTS="--enable-shared --with-trace-refs" pyenv install -kg 3.9.13
  

  This makes PySide2 work without the limited API.