Building a QTreeWidget with PySide and PyQt in Just 4 Minutes

PySide and PyQt are Python bindings for the Qt application framework, which allows you to create cross-platform desktop applications. QTreeWidget is a powerful widget used to display hierarchical data in a tree-like structure. In this tutorial, we will learn how to use PySide or PyQt to create a QTreeWidget in just 4 minutes.

Step 1: Setting up the environment

Before we start coding, we need to make sure that PySide or PyQt is installed on our system. You can install PySide using the following command:

pip install PySide

Or you can install PyQt using the following command:

pip install PyQt5

Once you have installed PySide or PyQt, you can start coding.

Step 2: Creating a QTreeWidget

To create a QTreeWidget, we first need to import the necessary modules. In this case, we will be using PySide:

from PySide2.QtWidgets import QApplication, QMainWindow, QTreeWidget, QTreeWidgetItem

Next, we need to create a QMainWindow and set up the QTreeWidget inside it.

app = QApplication([])
window = QMainWindow()

tree = QTreeWidget()
tree.setColumnCount(2)
tree.setHeaderLabels(['Name', 'Value'])

item = QTreeWidgetItem(tree)
item.setText(0, 'Item 1')
item.setText(1, 'Value 1')

tree.addTopLevelItem(item)

window.setCentralWidget(tree)
window.show()

app.exec_()

In the above code, we create a QMainWindow and add a QTreeWidget with two columns (Name and Value). We then create a QTreeWidgetItem and set its text for each column. Finally, we add the item to the QTreeWidget as a top-level item.

Step 3: Adding child items

To add child items to a QTreeWidgetItem, we can use the addChild() method. Here is an example:

child_item = QTreeWidgetItem()
child_item.setText(0, 'Child 1')
child_item.setText(1, 'Child Value 1')

item.addChild(child_item)

In the above code, we create a new QTreeWidgetItem and set its text for each column. We then add the child item to the parent item using the addChild() method.

Step 4: Handling item selection

To handle item selection in a QTreeWidget, we can use the itemSelectionChanged signal. Here is an example:

def on_item_selected():
    selected_item = tree.currentItem()
    print(selected_item.text(0))

tree.itemSelectionChanged.connect(on_item_selected)

In the above code, we define a function that will be called when an item is selected in the QTreeWidget. We get the selected item using the currentItem() method and print its text for the first column.

With these steps, you can create a simple QTreeWidget using PySide or PyQt in just 4 minutes. Remember that the QTreeWidget is a powerful widget, and there are many more features and functionalities that you can explore to create more complex and interactive tree structures in your desktop applications.