PyQt Workflow w/Maya?

Erkmuss · October 1, 2012, 10:07am

Hey All,

Just starting with PyQt and trying to figure out what my workflow is going to look like so I figured I’d ask what everbody else does. I downloaded Wing IDE for mayapy and potentially PyMEL. Wing doesn’t have a GUI builder for PyQt which pretty much means that I can’t execute it in Wing but auto-complete works so I was thinking that I would write and save it in Wing and copy + paste it into script editor in maya to test.

Does anyone have a better idea? I’m not really sure how debugging will go in Wing with this workflow which could be problematic.

Share or suggest a better workflow please. Thanks!

dgovil · October 1, 2012, 11:28am

Wings can send the command directly to Maya’s python interpreter to execute, as can most IDE’s now.

“You have to point Wing IDE to Maya’s own Python interpreter (it will complain that it can’t find Python installed since Maya maintains it’s own Python interpreter). Just go Project > Properties and set ‘Python Executable path to point to : C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Mayaxxxx\bin\mayapy.exe”

TreyAnesi · October 1, 2012, 12:06pm

What I’ve been doing, depending on the version of Maya you have, the 2012+ version comes with designer for your Qt. It’s just an xml writer though. Still, it can help get a quick design punched out. Then I use wing to code in, place my scripts within the given location for my project, and -
import yourProject
reload(yourProject)
yourProject.CallyourMainFunction() - Saved to the shelf. When I make a change within either the design file or the code file within Wing, I simply double click the shelf to test changes. Let me know if that helps, should be better than doing a copy/paste for each change though. The designer I think you can download for free btw.

dgovil · October 1, 2012, 12:19pm

Designer is indeed free to download as part of the Qt downloads from Qt’s site, but a copy of designer also comes with Maya on Windows/Linux. Mac for some reason doesn’t have it bundled.

Erkmuss · October 1, 2012, 1:28pm

[QUOTE=dgovil;18169]Wings can send the command directly to Maya’s python interpreter to execute, as can most IDE’s now.

“You have to point Wing IDE to Maya’s own Python interpreter (it will complain that it can’t find Python installed since Maya maintains it’s own Python interpreter). Just go Project > Properties and set ‘Python Executable path to point to : C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Mayaxxxx\bin\mayapy.exe”

I have my executable path set to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2012\bin\mayapy.exe - maybe I don’t understand how to send code to maya.

I tried to run this code in Wing:

import sip
sip.setapi(‘QString’, 2)
sip.setapi(‘QVariant’, 2)
from PyQt4 import QtGui, QtCore
btn = QtGui.QPushButton(QtGui.file)
btn.show()

…which worked when I put it in the script editor in maya but not when in Wing - Wing gave me:

QWidget: Must construct a QApplication before a QPaintDevice

Erkmuss · October 1, 2012, 1:35pm

[QUOTE=TreyAnesi;18170]What I’ve been doing, depending on the version of Maya you have, the 2012+ version comes with designer for your Qt. It’s just an xml writer though. Still, it can help get a quick design punched out. Then I use wing to code in, place my scripts within the given location for my project, and -
import yourProject
reload(yourProject)
yourProject.CallyourMainFunction() - Saved to the shelf. When I make a change within either the design file or the code file within Wing, I simply double click the shelf to test changes. Let me know if that helps, should be better than doing a copy/paste for each change though. The designer I think you can download for free btw.[/QUOTE]

I really like the designer - looks like it’ll be really quick to punch out a layout and then add in functionality. I’m not sure I fully understand your workflow. Are you saving that code to Maya’s shelf? You’re just referencing a file location that you save to from wing/designer as opposed to copy and pasting each time?

Also, I downloaded the Qt Creator w/Qt Designer in it from Qt’s download site but how do you access the Qt that came with Maya? Just so I know how to access it.

dgovil · October 1, 2012, 1:56pm

Actually, I should have prefaced by saying I’m an Eclipse/SublimeText2 user so wings specific issues might be better addressed by someone more knowledgeable than me.

That error on the other hand sounds about right. Basically you haven’t constructed the Qt app before you call the buttons draw event, so it errors out. It may work in Maya because QtGui.file points to the right directory for Maya’s environment, but that sounds overly tempermental to rely on.

http://nathanhorne.com/?p=451 << some good PyQT reading

Also TreyAnesi’s method is nice, since it’s just pointing to the right py file and telling it to recreate the pyc each time.

The bundled Maya designer is located at:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya<version>\bin\designer.exe

But for example, in Eclipse, I use Ron Bublitz’s system of sending all the commands over a serverPort to maya. He has a full tutorial on the setup on creativeCrash somewhere.
and I haven’t set it up yet, but SublimeText has an implementation of the same thing on the python-for-maya google group

rgkovach123 · October 1, 2012, 2:06pm

I like writing my pyQt Ui’s from scratch. Designer is kinda cool for poking around and getting familiar with the widgets and their options, but I prefer writing the UI from scratch… heresy, I know…

TreyAnesi · October 1, 2012, 2:21pm

Yeah the method I’ve been using was given from another tutorial, basically the three calls are doing this:

import YourFile -This loads the file you are working on in Wing, the file itself needs to be placed within your scripts folder for Maya
reload (Yourfile) -In case the file has already been called, this reloads the given file and application. Useful for debugging things.
YourFile.CallMainFunction() -Executes the program.
This process builds your python file each time. (Aka - .pyc)

But to each their own, I haven’t pointed my Wing compiler to maya yet, but might give that method a whirl sometime.

Erkmuss · October 1, 2012, 3:05pm

[QUOTE=dgovil;18176]Actually, I should have prefaced by saying I’m an Eclipse/SublimeText2 user so wings specific issues might be better addressed by someone more knowledgeable than me.

That error on the other hand sounds about right. Basically you haven’t constructed the Qt app before you call the buttons draw event, so it errors out. It may work in Maya because QtGui.file points to the right directory for Maya’s environment, but that sounds overly tempermental to rely on.

http://nathanhorne.com/?p=451 << some good PyQT reading

Also TreyAnesi’s method is nice, since it’s just pointing to the right py file and telling it to recreate the pyc each time.

The bundled Maya designer is located at:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya<version>\bin\designer.exe

But for example, in Eclipse, I use Ron Bublitz’s system of sending all the commands over a serverPort to maya. He has a full tutorial on the setup on creativeCrash somewhere.
and I haven’t set it up yet, but SublimeText has an implementation of the same thing on the python-for-maya google group[/QUOTE]

Yeah I actually got started using Nathan’s blog, didn’t scroll down to see the plug about Qt Designer until now

Thanks for the filepath, I found the designer.

I’ll checkout those tutorials and see if it applies to Wing. Thanks.

Erkmuss · October 1, 2012, 3:05pm

[QUOTE=rgkovach123;18177]I like writing my pyQt Ui’s from scratch. Designer is kinda cool for poking around and getting familiar with the widgets and their options, but I prefer writing the UI from scratch… heresy, I know…[/QUOTE]

Do you just write in the script editor then?

Erkmuss · October 1, 2012, 3:07pm

[QUOTE=TreyAnesi;18179]Yeah the method I’ve been using was given from another tutorial, basically the three calls are doing this:

import YourFile -This loads the file you are working on in Wing, the file itself needs to be placed within your scripts folder for Maya
reload (Yourfile) -In case the file has already been called, this reloads the given file and application. Useful for debugging things.
YourFile.CallMainFunction() -Executes the program.
This process builds your python file each time. (Aka - .pyc)

But to each their own, I haven’t pointed my Wing compiler to maya yet, but might give that method a whirl sometime.[/QUOTE]

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. That’s definitely better than copy and paste, thanks for sharing

TheMaxx · October 1, 2012, 8:50pm

this process gets really hairy when you have a lot of dependencies invloved. You’ll need to reload each one in the correct order. After a certain point, i usually just restart maya.

dgovil · October 1, 2012, 11:20pm

[QUOTE=TheMaxx;18185]this process gets really hairy when you have a lot of dependencies invloved. You’ll need to reload each one in the correct order. After a certain point, i usually just restart maya.[/QUOTE]

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/81731-reloading-all-modules/

rgkovach123 · October 2, 2012, 6:40am

[QUOTE=Erkmuss;18181]Do you just write in the script editor then?[/QUOTE]

I do write them out in Maya’s script editor in the beginning. once i reach critical mass, i’ll switch to wing and use try/reload for fast iteration. But I also liked to write UIs using the old ELF widgets in MEL…

TheMaxx · October 2, 2012, 10:03am

[QUOTE=dgovil;18187]http://code.activestate.com/recipes/81731-reloading-all-modules/[/QUOTE]

Awesome find, didn’t know you could do that

Rob_Galanakis · October 6, 2012, 4:27am

[QUOTE=rgkovach123;18191]I do write them out in Maya’s script editor in the beginning. once i reach critical mass, i’ll switch to wing and use try/reload for fast iteration. But I also liked to write UIs using the old ELF widgets in MEL… :)[/QUOTE]

Why not just write your UI’s in pure python, with regular PyQt/PySide, then just hook them up in Maya when they work as expected? Also much easier to maintain and test.