[PyQt] How to find the default style sheet parameters for a given QWiget?

[Maurizio Berti]

You are assuming that there is a "default" stylesheet, but there isn't any.

Exactly like with web browsers, if you don't specify a stylesheet, the
engine will render the elements using its own "basic" implementation:
stylesheets allow to modify the default appearance of elements only by
specifying "what you want to change".

When you apply a stylesheet, each one of its elements *overrides* of the
default appearance.
Exactly like when overriding a method in a subclass, you are expected to
provide an implementation that behaves like the original method does,
otherwise you'll get unexpected results.

Appearance (and, therefore, the user interaction based on it) of graphical
elements is generally based on two main aspects: font and colors. They are
often requested to the system by the "drawer" (the browser, the programming
framework like Qt or Gtk, etc), but that's not mandatory. The point is that
those are the most important and simple basis for everything else.

Qt does almost the same as browser do: if you apply a stylesheet, its
contents override the default painting behavior of the current QStyle
(which is the one responsible of the drawing and user interaction of every
widget). What happens "under the hood" is that when a stylesheet is set Qt
will use the current QStyle and add a "proxy" for the css: if some css
property requires a different behavior, it will use its own, otherwise the
current QStyle behavior will be used.

When you apply simple modifications like the foreground or background
color, those modifications will be applied on the current style, but
besides those colors, the overall appearance of the widget will not change.
Similarly, the same happens when changing the font: obviously, using a
different font won't alter how a button appears.

Now, when you want to modify other aspects, things change, because those
aspect override the default painting implementation.
If you set the border for a button, you are saying the underlying painting
system to ignore the default border and use your own: the result is that
using "border: 1px solid black" on a button will make its border *always*
black, no matter if it's pressed or not. To ensure that the button status
is always intelligible, you need to specify different properties using the
pseudo CSS selectors (:hover, :pressed, etc).

The more widgets become complex, the more you need to be specific about
their styling.

A checkbox is basically composed of two elements: the check indicator and
its label.
The check indicator is just a graphic element that is drawn differently
according to its different states (exactly like a button): when you see a
checked box you might be led to think that it's composed by a square and a
checkmark, but those two elements are actually a single painted object.

When you use the ::indicator selector, you are telling the style to
override the default painting of the indicator with your own, which means
that you have to provide *all* of its aspects: how should it appear when
checked, how should it appear when unchecked, etc.
Coincidentally, even the styling of HTML checkboxes is not as easy as it
might seem.

The same happens for widgets which are even more complex, like scrollbars.
Again, by setting a stylesheet, you're overriding the default painting
mechanism, so if you want to style a scrollbar, you have to provide *all*
of its aspects: the "groove" (the background), the handle, the buttons.

In conclusion, if you want to use stylesheets, you have to consider how
widgets are structured and understand what each "override" involves.

I suggest you to study the documentation of QStyle and read the source code
of widgets, especially their paintEvent methods: you will better understand
"what widgets are made of" and how they are drawn.

Maurizio

Il giorno gio 23 apr 2020 alle ore 10:45 Marius Pfeifer <mapfus at gmx.de> ha
scritto:

> Hi,
>
>
>
> I already asked the question on stack overflow
> <https://stackoverflow.com/q/61344290/5472354>, but I thought maybe it
> actually makes more sense to ask the question here. For details, please
> look at the post. If you have the answer, maybe you could also post it to
> stack overflow, so more people can benefit from it.
>
>
>
>
>
> Kind regards
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> PyQt mailing list    PyQt at riverbankcomputing.com
> https://www.riverbankcomputing.com/mailman/listinfo/pyqt
>


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