[PyQt] Making application look more sexy

[Marc Nations]

That is an awesome looking app!

In the past I've been able to overcome a lot shortcomings with gui toolkits
with a healthy use of images. Even when I was using TkInter and the look was
extremely outdated I was able to mask it by basically replacing as much as
possible with foreground and background images. There are tons of free
icon/image websites to choose from so that you don't have to spend a bunch
of time building them.

If you are interested in building them you can use apps like PowerPoint to
create glossy looking buttons and backdrops. Gimp does some of this also,
but takes a little bit longer. I'm not much of an artist, so I just like to
go grab stuff I think looks nice.

I don't know why some are so resistant to creating an app with a better
look/feel. While I agree that it's difficult sometimes to balance useability
with a "new" look, the first thing people are going to see is the nice coat
of pain, not the engine. And first appearances go a long way when people are
trying out software. Assuming it's also easy to use, then it can give you an
edge when compared with other apps.

Btw, I still haven't figured out how to use an image as a background in
PyQt4 without it automatically texturing. I'd like to use an image in a 1:1
ratio with the size of the widget you apply it to, but used in the
background so that text and widgets can be placed over it. If I try and
scale it, you get the texturing. If I don't scale it, it just shows up in
it's natural size which you'd have to manually set and then lock the app
down with no resizing, obviously that's not a good solution. Anyone know how
to do this?



2009/1/6 Gustavo A. Díaz <gustavo.diaz at gmail.com>

> Hi,
>
> I use purely Stylesheets+images in my App:
>
> http://opencoffee.lnxteam.org/trac/opencoffee/wiki/ScreenShots
>
> Cheers.
>
>
>
> 2009/1/5 Reinaldo de Carvalho <reinaldoc at gmail.com>
>
>  On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 7:08 PM, Filip Gruszczyński <gruszczy at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > I guess many of us know the term 'programmers art'. I am well aware of
>> > it, so I am avoiding as much as it's possible touch stylesheets and
>> > trying to work on them myself. I would like, however, to make my
>> > application look better. Maybe you know some simple tricks or know
>> > some good style plugins, that I could use?
>> >
>>
>> If do you use a pure-gnome-system (wo/ kdelibs) its can to be usefull:
>>
>> http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/02/11/theme-qt3-applications-in-gnome
>>
>> > --
>> > Filip Gruszczyński
>> >
>>
>> --
>> Reinaldo de Carvalho
>> http://korreio.sf.net (Now available in English)
>> http://python-cyrus.sf.net
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Gustavo A. Díaz
> GDNet Projects
> www.gdnet.com.ar
>
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