Creating user interface elements

Substance 3D Designer includes Qt For Python. Users can use the UI Managerclass to create menus, dialogs, custom panels and other user interface elements for their plugins.

In this page you can find simple examples of using Qt for Python inside Designer.

For more information about Qt for Python, please check the official documentation.

Creating dialogs


import sd

from PySide2 import QtWidgets



## Get the application and the UI Manager.

app = sd.getContext().getSDApplication()

uiMgr = app.getQtForPythonUIMgr()



## Create a new dialog. For shortcuts to work correctly

## it is important to parent the new dialog to Designer's main window.

mainWindow = uiMgr.getMainWindow()

dialog = QtWidgets.QDialog(parent=mainWindow)



## Create a layout and some widgets.

layout = QtWidgets.QVBoxLayout()

layout.addWidget(QtWidgets.QPushButton("Press Me"))

dialog.setLayout(layout)



## Show the dialog (non-modal).

dialog.show()

Creating menus


import sd

from PySide2 import QtWidgets



## Get the application and the UI Manager.

app = sd.getContext().getSDApplication()

uiMgr = app.getQtForPythonUIMgr()



## Function that will be called when our menu item is selected.

def sayHello():

 print("Hello!")



## Create a new menu.

menu = uiMgr.newMenu(menuTitle="MyMenu", objectName="doc.example.my_menu")

## Create a new action.

act = QtWidgets.QAction("Hello", menu)

act.triggered.connect(sayHello)



## Add the action to the menu.

menu.addAction(act)

Creating panels


import sd

from PySide2 import QtWidgets



## Get the application and the UI Manager.

app = sd.getContext().getSDApplication()

uiMgr = app.getQtForPythonUIMgr()



## Create a new dock widget.

## The dock identifier is used when saving and restoring dock positions and sizes.

## For this reason, it's important that the identifier is unique.

dock = uiMgr.newDockWidget(identifier="sample.test.dock", title="New Dock")



## Create a layout and add some widgets.

layout = QtWidgets.QVBoxLayout()

dock.setLayout(layout)



for i in range(0, 5):

 layout.addWidget(QtWidgets.QPushButton("Button %s" % i))

Creating toolbars in the application window


import sd

from PySide2 import QtCore, QtWidgets



## Get the application and the UI Manager.

app = sd.getContext().getSDApplication()

uiMgr = app.getQtForPythonUIMgr()



## Get Designer's main window.

mainWindow = uiMgr.getMainWindow()



## Create our toolbar.

toolbar = QtWidgets.QToolBar()

toolbar.addAction("Tool")

toolbar.addAction("Bar")



## Add our toolbar to Designer's window.

mainWindow.addToolBar(QtCore.Qt.TopToolBarArea, toolbar)

Creating toolbars in Graph View


from functools import partial

import sd



from PySide2 import QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets



class MyGraphToolBar(QtWidgets.QToolBar):

    def __init__(self, graphViewID, uiMgr):

        super(MyGraphToolBar, self).__init__(parent=uiMgr.getMainWindow())



## Save the graphViewID and uiMgr for later use.

        self.__graphViewID = graphViewID

        self.__uiMgr = uiMgr



## Add actions to our toolbar.

        act = self.addAction("P")

        act.setToolTip("Print the selected nodes to the Python console")

        act.triggered.connect(self.__onPrintNodes)



    def __onPrintNodes(self):

        for node in self.__getSelectedNodes():

            print(node)



    def __getSelectedNodes(self):

## Use our saved graphViewID to retrieve the graph selection.

        return self.__uiMgr.getGraphSelectedNodesFromGraphViewID(

            self.__graphViewID)



def onNewGraphViewCreated(graphViewID, uiMgr):

## Create our toolbar.

    toolbar = MyGraphToolBar(graphViewID, uiMgr)



## Add our toolbar to the graph widget.

    uiMgr.addToolbarToGraphView(

        graphViewID,

        toolbar,

        icon = None,

        tooltip = "My Graph Toolbar")



## Get the application and UI manager object.

ctx = sd.getContext()

app = ctx.getSDApplication()

uiMgr = app.getQtForPythonUIMgr()



## Register a callback to know when GraphViews are created.

uiMgr.registerGraphViewCreatedCallback(

    partial(onNewGraphViewCreated, uiMgr=uiMgr))

Creating actions in Graph View toolbar


from functools import partial

import sd



from PySide2 import QtWidgets





class MyGraphAction(QtWidgets.QAction):

    def __init__(self, graphViewID, uiMgr):

        super(MyGraphAction, self).__init__(parent=uiMgr.getMainWindow())



## Save the graphViewID and uiMgr for later use.

        self.__graphViewID = graphViewID

        self.__uiMgr = uiMgr



## Set up the action.

        self.setText("P")

        self.setToolTip("Print the selected nodes to the Python console")

        self.triggered.connect(self.__onPrintNodes)



    def __onPrintNodes(self):

        for node in self.__getSelectedNodes():

            print(node)



    def __getSelectedNodes(self):

## Use our saved graphViewID to retrieve the graph selection.

        return self.__uiMgr.getGraphSelectedNodesFromGraphViewID(

            self.__graphViewID

        )





def onNewGraphViewCreated(graphViewID, uiMgr):

## Create our action.

    action = MyGraphAction(

        graphViewID = graphViewID,

        uiMgr = uiMgr

    )



## Add our action to the graph toolbar.

    uiMgr.addActionToGraphViewToolbar(

        graphViewID,

        action

    )





## Get the application and UI manager object.

ctx = sd.getContext()

app = ctx.getSDApplication()

uiMgr = app.getQtForPythonUIMgr()



## Register a callback to know when GraphViews are created.

uiMgr.registerGraphViewCreatedCallback(

    partial(onNewGraphViewCreated, uiMgr=uiMgr))

Loading user interfaces created using Qt Designer

NOTE
Qt Designer is not included with Substance 3D Designer. You can get it by installing the official Qt distribution for your operating system.

from PySide2 import QtCore, QtWidgets, QtUiTools



def loadUiFile(filename, parent=None):

    '''

    Loads a Qt Designer .ui file.

    Returns a widget.

    '''

    loader = QtUiTools.QUiLoader()

    uifile = QtCore.QFile(filename)

    uifile.open(QtCore.QFile.ReadOnly)

    ui = loader.load(uifile, parent)

    uifile.close()

    return ui



## Get the application and the UI Manager.

app = sd.getContext().getSDApplication()

uiMgr = app.getQtForPythonUIMgr()



## Load our Qt Designer ui file.

widget = loadUiFile("MyUI.ui", parent=uiMgr.getMainWindow())



## Show our user interface. In this case we show it as a non-modal dialog,

## but we could also make it modal or create a new dock for it.

widget.show()
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