The Insider's Best-Practice Guide to Rapid PyQt 4 GUI Development Whether you're building GUI prototypes or full-fledged cross-platform GUI applications with native look-and-feel, PyQt 4 is your fastest, easiest, most powerful solution. Qt expert Mark Summerfield has written the definitive best-practice guide to PyQt 4 development. With Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt you'll learn how to build efficient GUI applications that run on all major operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and many versions of Unix, using the same source code for all of them. Summerfield systematically introduces every core GUI development technique: from dialogs and windows to data handling; from events to printing; and more. Through the book's realistic examples you'll discover a completely new PyQt 4-based programming approach, as well as coverage of many new topics, from PyQt 4's rich text engine to advanced model/view and graphics/view programming. Every key concept is illuminated with realistic, downloadable examples—all tested on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux with Python 2.5, Qt 4.2, and PyQt 4.2, and on Windows and Linux with Qt 4.3 and PyQt 4.3. Coverge includes

• Python basics for every PyQt developer: data types, data structures, control structures, classes, modules, and more

• Core PyQt GUI programming techniques: dialogs, main windows, and custom file formats

• Using Qt Designer to design user interfaces, and to implement and test dialogs, events, the Clipboard, and drag-and-drop

• Building custom widgets: Widget Style Sheets, composite widgets, subclassing, and more

• Making the most of Qt 4.2's new graphics/view architecture

• Connecting to databases, executing SQL queries, and using form and table views

• Advanced model/view programming: custom views, generic delegates, and more

• Implementing online help, internationalizing applications, and using PyQt's networking and multithreading facilities

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 12 Ratings

Great text book - 2008-10-03
Reviewer Rating:
I needed a book to help me through connecting Python and QT together so that I could write GUI programs in Python. This book definitely did that for me so I am satisfied.

This book is written as a classroom textbook, not as a reference. Part I is on Python programming (the first 100 of 500+ pages). I did not need that but in the context of a textbook it's good to have everything between two covers.

I like the fact that it covers a broad range of material beyond GUI programming including database access and model/view programming. I think I will be digging into it for quite some time.

Great PyQt Book/Only PyQt Book - 2008-09-28
Reviewer Rating:
I started cross-platform GUI development back in 1992 when a client asked us to migrate an IBM Mainframe application using 3270 access (available on our WinXX, OS/2, Mac, SunOs, and Solaris clients [plus an unofficial Next]) to a Solaris DB/Document Management Server maintaining the same end user computer types. We did it using a Proprietary C package (the developer of which has since imploded). Nowadays, to do the same thing we might keep our data on a web server and let the browser sort it out. Or we might use a cross-platform toolkit.
Eight years ago I discovered a great product with a dual mode license called Qt: If you want to do open source programming then download the code and you are good to go; if you want to retain the rights to your latest product coded in Qt, then buy and download a developer version for each unique platform type you support. Qt, the product I've been describing, is a great product in it's own right, and the author of the book I'm supposed to be reviewing is also the author of books about the Qt system itself: C++ GUI Programming with Qt4;C++ GUI Programming with Qt4, 2nd ed.;C++ GUI Programming with Qt4, 2nd ed. (Kindle).
When I learned that Riverside Computing of the UK had produced PyQt as well as other products that would allow the Qt packages to be programmed with Python instead of/in addition to C++, I was ecstatic. Searches of the Internet showed much in the way of Qt/C++ documentation. Searches of Amazon.com showed only "Rapid Gui Programming with Python and Qt". So this is THE book for learning to integrate one of the great improvements in software development: interpretive, byte-code rapid application development in Python with the power and capability of the Qt cross-platform development tool.
This book is just fantastic!











































































































































































































































































d

best PyQt book - 2009-04-24
Reviewer Rating:
Good clear exposition of Qt as used with Python. Qt, a GUI toolkit, seems fairly easy to use (particularly with Python), but is quite large (as needed to provide various convenient features for a broad variety of GUI widgets): hence it's good that this book goes through the numerous features clearly and in detail.

As a bonus, the author assumes no prior knowledge of Python, and spends the first hundred pages on a swift Python tutorial. Of course one can't learn all of Python in a hundred pages, but the author covers the features needed to follow the rest of this book. Moreover, I think it's actually a good introduction to Python, which you will appreciate if either (a) you've used Python but are rusty and need some quick reminders, or (b) you've never used Python (but know another object-oriented language), in which case this should get you nicely started on Python.

Also I should mention that, when I had problems getting Qt and PyQt to install, the author wrote back instantly with useful information. Oh, yeah, I should warn you that, if you're installing on Mac, do not use Python 2.6 or later; PyQt currently has trouble with it. The combination I finally got to work was: Python 2.5.4; Qt 4.4.3; SIP 4.7.9; PyQt 4.4.4. (Of course this information will change over time. Refer to the author's website for updates.)

Well-articulated, consistently informative introduction to Python and Qt - 2009-10-11
Reviewer Rating:
I bought "Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt" (Summerfield) and "Programming Python" (Lutz) in order to help me write my first Python software application, a program whose development would require an understanding of Python, Qt, PyQt, and relational databases. I found Summerfield's book very useful.

The first few chapters brought me up to speed on Python itself. The chapters which dealt with PyQt were of course the most detailed and the most useful. I found myself getting frustrated with the "Dance of the Seven Veils": the book would touch on a topic briefly, explain how important it was, give an example, then hurry away to cover something else. By the time we got to the meaty, more thoroughly-explored examples, I was confused and slightly lost. Google filled in the gaps, so in the end it was all worth it.

In defense of this book's "A little bit of everything" style, I must point out that a toolkit of Qt's size and complexity cannot be covered thoroughly by a single text, in my opinion anyway. Summerfield took on an impossible task and did a good job.

All things considered, I think that Summerfield's book was worth the money. It rarely leaves my desk and never sits on my bookshelf. That's how useful it is to me.

The best - 2009-08-14
Reviewer Rating:
This book explain in a few chapters explain more about python than other books that are entirely dedicated to python, and have EVERYTHING that you need to work with PyQt. The only negative thing: is for python < 3. But that's not realy a problem.

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