Adding Widgets and Plugins to MadQt

A way to contribute to this project is to add your widgets and QtDesigner plugins to it.
It is also a great way to share your code skills with the world.

You can use MadQtPluginCreator to easily create a startup template for your plugin.

Make sure you have a GitHub account and follow the following steps…

In this Tutorial we will use the already present HtButton Widget as an example.

STEP 1 - FORK MADQT

Go to the MadQt GitHub page and press the Fork button on the top right corner.

Once you forked it, you should have access to a fully editable copy of the package.

Make sure you add information about your plugin/widget in a comment at the top of this file.

Version and description are the most important things here.

And of course email or any contact method so that companies can hire you for a job cuz your code rocks ;)

"""
Widget: DoeButton
Version: 0.0.1

Contributors: John Doe
Email: john_doe@email.com

Description: A QPushButton with a hovered state and text
"""

Drag and drop your widget file to your forked version of MadQt into the directory MadQt/Widgets/

This could be: doe_button.py

Add a description saying something like “new widget submission” and press commit.

STEP 4 - SHORTEN ACCESS

Import your widget in the MadQt/Widgets/__init__.py file

from MadQt.Widgets.htbutton import HtButton
from MadQt.Widgets.anim_picker import AnimPicker
from MadQt.Widgets.expander import Expander
from MadQt.Widgets.doe_button import DoeButton # <<< HERE

If your widget does not have a plugin skip to STEP 8

STEP 5 - EDIT YOUR PLUGIN

At the top of your plugin file you should add the same code as in STEP 2.

"""
Widget: DoeButton
Version: 0.0.1

Contributors: John Doe
Email: john_doe@email.com

Description: A QPushButton with a hovered state and text
"""

You should edit the import of your widget in your plugin like so:

Before:

# Importing from the same folder
from doe_button import DoeButton

After

# Importing from the MadQt package Widgets folder
from MadQt.Widgets import DoeButton

As you can see we are now importing from the MadQt/Widgets/doe_button folder that we will create in the next step.

Another place you need to edit the import is in the include section of your plugin

Before:

    def includeFile(self):
        # Importing from the same folder
        return 'doe_button'

After:

    def includeFile(self):
        # Importing from the MadQt package Widgets folder
        return 'MadQt.Widgets.doe_button'

STEP 6 - ADD YOUR PLUGIN

Create a folder in your system using a similar or same name as the one you used for your widget and place all necessary files in it.

In our case we use “doe_button”

doe_button
- doebuttonplugin.py
- doebutton.ico

Drag and drop the folder to your forked version of MadQt into the directory “MadQt/QtDesignerPlugins/”

Add a description saying something like “new plugin submission” and press commit.

STEP 7 - EDIT REGISTER_ALL.PY

In “MadQt/QtDesignerPlugins/” you will find a file called “register_all.py”

You must add your widget and plugin to it

from PySide6.QtDesigner import QPyDesignerCustomWidgetCollection

# A QPushButton that changes text when hovered
from MadQt.QtDesignerPlugins.hover_text_button.htbuttonplugin import HtButtonPlugin

# An Expandable and animated container
from MadQt.QtDesignerPlugins.expander.expanderplugin import ExpanderPlugin

# A QPushButton with a hovered state and text by John Doe
from MadQt.QtDesignerPlugins.another_widget.doebuttonplugin import DoeButtonPlugin # <<< HERE

if __name__ == '__main__':
    QPyDesignerCustomWidgetCollection.addCustomWidget(HtButtonPlugin())
    QPyDesignerCustomWidgetCollection.addCustomWidget(ExpanderPlugin())
    QPyDesignerCustomWidgetCollection.addCustomWidget(DoeButtonPlugin()) # <<< AND HERE

Notice the way we are importing from MadQt

Navigate to the docs folder in your forked repository.

The docs/Widgets folder contains folders that correspond to the section structure in QtDesigner, so if your widget is a button you will want to create a documentation .md file in docs/Widgets/Buttons, if it is a container you will want to create it in docs/Widgets/Containers.

In our example we are adding a button (DoeButton) so we placed it in docs/Widgets/Buttons/DoeButton.md

You can make a copy of the existing HtButton.md file to use it as an example and change the relevant fields.

STEP 9 - CREATE A PULL REQUEST

Navigate to the topmost folder in your forked repository and press “New pull request” button.

On the new page that pops, press “Create pull request”

Add the details of your new plugin and press “Create pull request”

STEP 10 - WAIT FOR REVIEW

You are all done, now all you need is patience and wait for us to review and accept your new plugin.