Qt Notes and Guidelines

Basics

Basically, widgets hold layouts which hold widgets which hold layouts and so on...

It all starts with QWidget (seen in ui.py). From there we have a layout (QVBoxLayout in ui.py) which holds widgets and so on.

Documentation:

• All layouts and widgets
• PyQt5 reference guide
• More on layouts
• More on widgets

Guidelines

Note: may change soon with introduction of .ui files

Each visual component should probably have its own class that implements some widget or layout. Within each of those classes there should be the presentation logic, at least.

• The presentation logic can be handled within self.render() (arbitrary name I used) which is called by the __init__() class constructor.
  • self.render() would create child widgets/layouts which would be added to the class (e.g. self.addLayout(...) or self.addWidget(...))
• The business logic can be handled here, but we might want to separate things into another class if things get crowded. This is probably a good idea to do early anyway since we know the add-on will grow.

Example

# views/custom_widget.py

from aqt.qt import *

class CustomWidget(QWidget):
  def __init__(self):
    super().__init__()
    self.render()

  def render(self):
     self.layout = QVBoxLayout()
     self.button = QPushButton()
     self.button.clicked.connect(self.doSomething)
     self.layout.addWidget(self.button)
     self.addLayout(self.layout)

  def doSomething(self):
      # Biz logic
      pass

Environment

• PyCharm users: clone anki source somewhere and open it in alongside addon project.
  • Go to Settings -> Project: -> Project Dependencies -> Check "anki" for your addon project's dependencies, leave anki dependencies blank.
• The addon reloader allows you to refresh the addon with couple of clicks vs. restarting Anki
• Attach to the Anki process in your IDE/editor to help reduce debugging time significantly
  • Tutorials: PyCharm (Linux-only), VS Code

Other links:

• This discussion post.
• This VS code guide

Further Reading

• Anki Addon Documentation

Tools

• Glutanimate's Anki Add-on Builder: Github, Documentation