Utilizing PyQt for Maya and Unreal: Working with File Dialog in Version 06

In this tutorial, we will learn how to work with file dialogs in PyQt for Maya and Unreal. File dialogs are a common way for users to select files or directories from their computers. We will learn how to use file dialogs to open and save files, as well as how to filter files based on their types.

To begin, we need to import the necessary modules. In this case, we will need to import the QtWidgets and QtGui modules from PyQt5. We can do this by adding the following lines of code at the top of our script:

from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QFileDialog, QWidget
from PyQt5.QtGui import QIcon

Next, let’s create a simple GUI application with two buttons – one for opening a file and another for saving a file. We will also add a QLabel widget to display the selected file path. Here’s the code for creating the GUI:

class FileDialogExample(QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super(FileDialogExample, self).__init__()

        self.initUI()

    def initUI(self):
        self.setWindowTitle('File Dialog Example')
        self.setGeometry(100, 100, 400, 300)

        self.openBtn = QPushButton('Open File', self)
        self.openBtn.setGeometry(50, 50, 100, 30)
        self.openBtn.clicked.connect(self.openFile)

        self.saveBtn = QPushButton('Save File', self)
        self.saveBtn.setGeometry(200, 50, 100, 30)
        self.saveBtn.clicked.connect(self.saveFile)

        self.label = QLabel('Selected File: ', self)
        self.label.setGeometry(50, 100, 300, 30)

        self.show()

    def openFile(self):
        filename, _ = QFileDialog.getOpenFileName(self, 'Open File', '', 'All Files (*);;Text Files (*.txt);;Python Files (*.py)')

        if filename:
            self.label.setText(f'Selected File: {filename}')

    def saveFile(self):
        filename, _ = QFileDialog.getSaveFileName(self, 'Save File', '', 'All Files (*);;Text Files (*.txt);;Python Files (*.py)')

        if filename:
            self.label.setText(f'Selected File: {filename}')

In the above code, we created a simple PyQt QWidget application with two buttons for opening and saving files, as well as a label to display the selected file path. The openFile and saveFile functions are called when the corresponding buttons are clicked. These functions open a file dialog window using the getOpenFileName and getSaveFileName methods of the QFileDialog class. These methods take parameters for the parent widget, dialog title, default directory, and file filters.

The file filters are specified using a string where each filter consists of a display name followed by a file extension in parentheses. Multiple filters can be separated by a double semicolon.

Now, let’s create an instance of our FileDialogExample class and run the PyQt application:

import sys
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    ex = FileDialogExample()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

When you run the above script, you should see a window with two buttons for opening and saving files. Clicking on either button will open a file dialog window where you can select a file. The selected file path will be displayed in the label widget.

This concludes our tutorial on working with file dialogs in PyQt for Maya and Unreal. File dialogs are a useful feature for allowing users to interact with files on their computers within your application. Feel free to customize the file filters and file dialog options to suit your specific needs.