Python Programming: How to Create a Calendar Using PyQt’s QCalendarWidget

In this tutorial, we will create a calendar application using Python and PyQt5’s QCalendarWidget. QCalendarWidget is a widget that allows users to select dates from a calendar interface. We will create a simple calendar application that displays the current date and allows users to view different months and years.

To get started, make sure you have Python and PyQt5 installed on your machine. You can install PyQt5 using pip:

pip install PyQt5

Once you have PyQt5 installed, create a new Python file and import the necessary modules:

import sys
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QMainWindow, QCalendarWidget
from PyQt5.QtCore import QDate

Next, create a QMainWindow class that will serve as the main window for our calendar application:

class CalendarApp(QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()

        self.setWindowTitle("Calendar App")

        self.calendar = QCalendarWidget(self)
        self.calendar.setGeometry(10, 10, 400, 300)
        self.setCentralWidget(self.calendar)

        self.calendar.clicked.connect(self.showDate)

    def showDate(self):
        selected_date = self.calendar.selectedDate()
        print(selected_date.toString())

In the code above, we defined a QMainWindow subclass called CalendarApp. We created an instance of QCalendarWidget and set it as the central widget of the main window. We also connected the clicked signal of the calendar widget to a function showDate, which will print the selected date in the console.

Now, we will create an instance of QApplication and show our main window:

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

When you run the code, you should see a window with a calendar displayed. You can navigate between months and years by using the arrow buttons at the top of the calendar. Clicking on a date will print the selected date in the console.

That’s it! You have successfully created a calendar application in Python using PyQt5’s QCalendarWidget. You can further customize the application by adding features like event handling and data storage. Explore the PyQt5 documentation to learn more about the possibilities of PyQt5 widgets and how to use them in your applications.