Atom: autocompletion with Qt Creator UI files in Python - qt

Question

I'm using PyQt5 with QtCreator to generate interface .ui files. I follow a naming convention so no difficulty finding the widgets/elements of the generated interface.
Unfortunately Atom is not able to figure out the types no autocompletion or offering of available methods. I've looked around some of the Python autocompletion packages but found nothing yet.
I could generate proper Python modules using the 'pyuic' tool but prefer not to if possible.
Does anyone know a way around this?

Answer 1

One way to do it is simply to translate the .ui into .py every time you run your application. Then you can dynamically develop and debug your application, until it's ready for final packaging. I don't know how much startup time this adds, but certainly less than the time wasted going through documentation rather than autocomplete.
In your root directory, you have your mainwindow.ui, e.g.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<ui version="4.0">
<class>MainWindow</class>
<widget class="QMainWindow" name="MainWindow">
<property name="geometry">
<rect>
<x>0</x>
<y>0</y>
<width>400</width>
<height>300</height>
</rect>
</property>
<property name="windowTitle">
<string>MainWindow</string>
</property>
<widget class="QWidget" name="centralWidget">
<widget class="QPushButton" name="button1">
<property name="geometry">
<rect>
<x>60</x>
<y>20</y>
<width>113</width>
<height>32</height>
</rect>
</property>
<property name="text">
<string>button1</string>
</property>
</widget>
<widget class="QPushButton" name="button2">
<property name="geometry">
<rect>
<x>200</x>
<y>20</y>
<width>113</width>
<height>32</height>
</rect>
</property>
<property name="text">
<string>button2</string>
</property>
</widget>
</widget>
<widget class="QMenuBar" name="menuBar">
<property name="geometry">
<rect>
<x>0</x>
<y>0</y>
<width>400</width>
<height>22</height>
</rect>
</property>
<widget class="QMenu" name="menuFile">
<property name="title">
<string>File</string>
</property>
<addaction name="actionOpen"/>
</widget>
<addaction name="menuFile"/>
</widget>
<action name="actionOpen">
<property name="text">
<string>Open</string>
</property>
<property name="shortcut">
<string>Ctrl+O</string>
</property>
</action>
</widget>
<layoutdefault spacing="6" margin="11"/>
<resources/>
<connections/>
</ui>
And now you can edit it as much as you want, using Qt Creator, and then run pyuic every time your interface launches.
import sys
import os
os.system("pyuic5 mainwindow.ui > mainwindow.py") # Converts the ui to py on every launch
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import *
from mainwindow import Ui_MainWindow
class App(QMainWindow):
def __init__(self):
super(App, self).__init__()
self.ui = Ui_MainWindow() # Run these two lines to integrate
self.ui.setupUi(self) # the .ui into your python setup
# Connect everything as usual, with autocomplete
self.ui.button1.clicked.connect(self.button1_click)
self.ui.button2.clicked.connect(self.button2_click)
self.show()
def button1_click(self):
print("Button 1 clicked")
def button2_click(self):
print("Button 2 clicked")
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
window = App()
sys.exit(app.exec_())