Qt Creator

This is a collection of tutorials I found useful to get into the Qt framework. Being more used to the Microsoft standard, I have always wanted to branch into more cross-platform stuff so that I can at least write tools and programs for my Mac. I never really liked the idea of “reinventing the wheels” feel of C++ unless it was on an embedded system so Python looked like a solid contender to the rather messy Perl.

In terms of interface, the choice is rather broad for Python but after trying a bit of Cocoa, TkInter, wxPython and GTK, nothing can quite give the clean and organized feel of Qt.

A solid start for Qt (which is written for C++) is always to go through the official 500+ pages book for Qt and C++. Luckily, the book’s available online from the Qt website. Too bad they’ve made it not very obvious to get to from the start page.

Then you can go through some more task-specific tutorials or get straight into PyQt:

• http://doc.trolltech.com/4.5/designer-manual.html a manual for the neat Qt Designer tool that is available from the Qt website. There’s the YouTube videos that go with it as well.
• http://www.commandprompt.com/community/pyqt/book1 slightly dated but a very solid source with vast amounts of examples
• http://www.rkblog.rk.edu.pl/w/p/python/ another nice set of tutorials that goes through scenarios with you
• http://vizzzion.org/?id=pyqt a really simple 5 minute tutorial with Qt and Python
• http://www.zetcode.com/tutorials/pyqt4/ short and sweet, although it could leave you wanting more
• You can check out my tutorial on creating thumbnail list via drag-drop for a quick get shit done guide

But nothing can compare with the wealth of information that’s available in the Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt book. It is simply my best recommendation.

Here’s a tutorial for deploying PyQt applications on Mac.