Developing a Video Library Management Software with Python, PyQt, and MySQL for Windows OS

Creating a video library software using Python, PyQt, and MySQL can be a fun and practical project for anyone interested in developing software applications. In this tutorial, we will walk you through the process of building a simple video library software that allows users to add, delete, and search for videos in a database.

To get started, you will need to have Python, PyQt, and MySQL installed on your computer. If you don’t have them already installed, you can download Python from the official website (https://www.python.org/downloads/), PyQt from the Qt website (https://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/pyqt/download), and MySQL from the MySQL website (https://www.mysql.com/downloads/).

Step 1: Setting up the database
First, you will need to create a MySQL database to store the information about your videos. You can use a tool like phpMyAdmin or MySQL Workbench to create a new database and a table to store the video information. Here is an example of a simple video table schema:

CREATE TABLE videos (
    id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    title VARCHAR(255),
    director VARCHAR(255),
    year INT,
    genre VARCHAR(255)
);

Once you have created the table, you can start adding some sample data to it.

Step 2: Creating the Python application
Next, you will create a Python application using PyQt to build the user interface for the video library software. PyQt is a set of Python bindings for the Qt application framework, which allows you to create cross-platform applications with a native look and feel.

To create the main window of the application, you can start by creating a new Python script and importing the necessary modules:

import sys
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QMainWindow, QWidget, QLabel, QLineEdit, QPushButton, QVBoxLayout

Next, you can create a class that inherits from QMainWindow and define the layout and widgets for the main window:

class VideoLibraryApp(QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.setWindowTitle('Video Library')

        layout = QVBoxLayout()

        self.title_label = QLabel('Title:')
        self.title_input = QLineEdit()

        self.director_label = QLabel('Director:')
        self.director_input = QLineEdit()

        self.year_label = QLabel('Year:')
        self.year_input = QLineEdit()

        self.genre_label = QLabel('Genre:')
        self.genre_input = QLineEdit()

        self.add_button = QPushButton('Add Video')

        layout.addWidget(self.title_label)
        layout.addWidget(self.title_input)
        layout.addWidget(self.director_label)
        layout.addWidget(self.director_input)
        layout.addWidget(self.year_label)
        layout.addWidget(self.year_input)
        layout.addWidget(self.genre_label)
        layout.addWidget(self.genre_input)
        layout.addWidget(self.add_button)

        widget = QWidget()
        widget.setLayout(layout)
        self.setCentralWidget(widget)

Now, you can create an instance of the VideoLibraryApp class, start the main application loop, and display the main window:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    video_library_app = VideoLibraryApp()
    video_library_app.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

Step 3: Adding functionality to the application
To add functionality to the application, you can connect the ‘Add Video’ button to a function that will insert the video information into the database. You can also create a search functionality that allows users to search for videos by title.

First, create a function to insert the video information into the database:

def add_video(self):
    title = self.title_input.text()
    director = self.director_input.text()
    year = self.year_input.text()
    genre = self.genre_input.text()

    # Connect to the database
    # Insert the video information into the database

Next, connect the ‘Add Video’ button to the add_video function:

self.add_button.clicked.connect(self.add_video)

Finally, create a function to search for videos by title:

def search_videos(self):
    title = self.title_input.text()

    # Connect to the database
    # Query the database for videos with the specified title
    # Display the search results in a new window

You can create a new window to display the search results by creating a new instance of QMainWindow or QDialog and adding widgets to it.

Step 4: Connecting the application to the database
To connect the application to the MySQL database, you can use the MySQL Connector library in Python. You can install the library using pip:

pip install mysql-connector-python

Next, you can create a function to connect to the database and execute queries:

import mysql.connector

def connect_database():
    return mysql.connector.connect(
        host="localhost",
        user="root",
        password="your_password",
        database="video_library"
    )

def insert_video(title, director, year, genre):
    conn = connect_database()
    cursor = conn.cursor()

    sql = "INSERT INTO videos (title, director, year, genre) VALUES (%s, %s, %s, %s)"
    val = (title, director, year, genre)

    cursor.execute(sql, val)

    conn.commit()

    conn.close()

You can call the insert_video function in the add_video function to insert the video information into the database.

Similarly, you can create a query function to search for videos in the database:

def search_videos(title):
    conn = connect_database()
    cursor = conn.cursor()

    sql = "SELECT * FROM videos WHERE title LIKE %s"
    val = ('%' + title + '%',)

    cursor.execute(sql, val)

    result = cursor.fetchall()

    conn.close()

    return result

You can call the search_videos function in the search_videos function to query the database for videos with the specified title.

Step 5: Testing the application
You can now run the Python script to test the video library software. You can add new videos, search for existing ones, and see the results displayed in the application window.

This tutorial covers the basic steps to create a video library software using Python, PyQt, and MySQL. You can further enhance the application by adding additional features such as editing and deleting videos, viewing details of a specific video, and implementing user authentication. Happy coding!