PyUIBuilder/docs/intro.md

PyUIBuilder Documentation

NOTE ⚠️

This page is still under work in progress. This page will be updated from time to time. This contains the basic documentation for PYUIBuilder

UI Basics

Let's start with the basics of UI

1. The sidebar on the left will have multiple tabs, each tabs will provide you with necessary tools.
2. The Place where you drag and drop widgets is the canvas
3. The toolbar will only appear if a widget is selected.

Canvas

Things you can do on canvas.

1. Add widgets from sidebar.
2. Zoom and pan using mouse.
3. zoom using +/- keys
4. Delete widgets using del key or right clicking on the widget

Project name

By default all project's are named "untitled project", you can change this from the header input next to export code.

Selecting a UI library

You can select the UI library from the header dropdown. Once selected changing the UI library in between your work, will erase the canvas.

Widgets

Every widget has its own attributes, some of the attributes may be common.

1. MainWindow: Every UI needs to have one main window. If you don't have any main window, the output will not be generated.

   If you have multiple Main Window you'll be asked to delete one window at the time of code generation.

2. Layouts: Every widget that can hold a child widget has three different layouts.

   1. Flex(also known as pack)
   2. Grid
   3. Absolute/Place

   The parents of the child widgets controls the layout. The layout properties such as grid position will be available to the child under the grid-manager/flex-manager section.

All Widgets attributes are available on the toolbar. The toolbar contains collapsible, which can be opened to modify the widgets attributes such as foreground / background colors, themes and more.

Adding widgets

Adding widgets are as easy as dragging and dropping widgets from sidebar to canvas

Deleting widgets

You can either delete the widget by selecting the widget and pressing the del button or right-click -> delete

Resizing widgets

You can resize the widgets by dragging the widget corners. If the fit-width/fit-height is set to true, make sure to uncheck it before resizing.

Variable names

To modify variable name, change the widget name attributes, if there are duplicate names, the code generation engine will automatically add a count to the the variable name, eg: var1, var2.

Every widget name will be converted to snake case.

Modifying widget attributes

Widget attributes are available will selected on the toolbar.

Adding images to label

To add image to label first go to sidebar -> uploads -> upload a image file.

Now under the label attributes you'll be able to see image upload option. Select the image from the dropdown

Adding options to radio button

To add more option to radio button click on the radio button widget then on the toolbar -> under radio group -> add input

Adding options to select dropdown.

Adding more options to select dropdown is similar to radio buttons as shown above.

Layouts

There are 3 main layouts. The layouts are set by the parents. Once a layout is set every child widget will use the same layout for positioning. The ony exception is if you have enabled absolute positioning from the child widgets toolbar.

By default all layouts are set to Flex

Depending on the layout selected your child widgets will be provided with flex-manager / grid-manager.

Flex

Flex is similar to pack in tkinter, the widgets will be arranged horizontally/vertically depending on the flex-direction

Grid

Grid is a 2d layout manager, you can position each widget by clicking on widget -> toolbar -> grid-manager

Absolute positioning

You can use position absolute for specific widget by checking the absolute positing attribute

Swapping widgets on flex layout

You can swap widget by bringing the widget near the edge of the other widget.

Warning ⚠️

This feature is still work in progress and sometimes may not work as expected

Plugins

Plugins are third party UI libraries. You can drag and drop the plugins just like widgets onto the canvas. The plugin card on the sidebar contains information about the library, such as library repo and license.

Exporting code

Once you are happy with the UI, you can click on export code from the header and code will be downloaded to your local machine.

Requirements.txt

The requirements.txt files are auto generated, before running the code ensure you have installed the dependencies by using pip install -r requirements.txt

Saving the file

Files are not saved or stored. However this is an upcoming feature for the Premium users