PyQtForSoftimage with PySide support

[Steven Caron]

Hey Gang

Tony Barbieri and I have been working on official support for PySide with the PyQtForSoftimage plugin and I need some testers...

Who here wants to use PySide instead of PyQt4? It is a little rough right now so, only people that really want to use PySide should contact me.

Thanks

Steven

[Jeremie Passerin]

Can I ask what's the main differences between PySide and PyQt4 ? 

Is that just licensing ? 

Jeremie

[Steven Caron]

mostly licensing yes, but some other differences outlined here...

http://qt-project.org/wiki/Differences_Between_PySide_and_PyQt

[joshxsi]

PySide is much more pythonic with data, strings etc are just strings not QStrings.

http://qt-project.org/wiki/Differences_Between_PySide_and_PyQt

[Tony Barbieri]

The nice part about the licensing is that it can be shipped with applications.  Nuke, Hiero and I believe Maya as of 2014, all ship with it.

-tony

--
-tony

[Jeremie Passerin]

Ohh Nice !

[Sebastien Sterling]

is pyside just a more up to date version of the version of python currently supported by softimage ?

[Tony Barbieri]

PySide runs fine in 2.6 if that's what you mean.  Might have to compile it yourself though.  Not sure what binaries they are distributing.

--
-tony

[Sebastien Sterling]

found an artical about the key differences between pyqt and pyside and as Stephen said the main difference seems to be the licensing : GPL for pyqt, and LGPL for Pyside. also piside is being maintained by nokia. here is the article if any other laymen are wondering.


http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1297660/pyside-vs-pyqt

[Tim Crowson]

That's great to hear, guys!

I've heard rumors that PySide isn't being maintained nearly as actively as PyQt. Is this true, and does it matter?

-Tim

--

[Steven Caron]

i have heard this too. i think that is one good thing about pyqt's license, it makes money with its licensing and those dollars support its development. but you also have to consider qt's changing of hands recently (digia) so that might be a reason for it being a bit quiet but there has been some movement since and discussions are taking place about its future. either way i think its (pyside) license means it will always be available for the community.

[Stefan Kubicek]

Hi Steven,

I tried to use PySide together with your PyQt4XSI plugin last year and managed to get your basic demos running after replacing some lines of code (I think it was mostly the import statements changed to point at PySide.blah instead of the PyQt ones). No real problems I can remember, but projects caught up with me and I couldn't try harder to find any.

What proofed to be a major pita was (and still is) that I could not find any x64 version of PySide that includes the Shiboken Python module out of the box and is compatible with Python 2.6.x. There are a couple of pre-built packages for download both from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#pyside and http://qt-project.org/wiki/PySide_Binaries_Windows, but none of them includes shiboken.pyd as far as I could see. Back then I was lucky and some kind sould sent me a compatible version of the module (maybe that was even you? Sorry, I really can't recall)

Meanwhile, from what I could learn from the net, the missing module seems to be due to a bug in one of the PySide build scripts and allegedly has been fixed months ago, it's just that nobody has made a new build with it and made it publicly available yet (neither Gohlke nor the maintainers of the PySide project and it's associated web pages), which is also where even I feel that PySide is less well maintained compared to PyQt, admittedly.

Did you compile Qt and PySide yourself or did you find an alternate source with precompiled binaries?

Ultimately, I think what's needed to get that missing module is a custom PySide build compiled against Python 2.7.x and VS2010 (for SI2014) or Python 2.6.x and VS2008 (for anything older than SI2014) and an as up to date Qt version as possible (don't know if 5.x would be a good idea, 4.8.4 seems to be the latest of the 4.x line).

Early last week I finally had time to make another attempt and finally managed to compile Qt 4.8.4 for x64 against Python 2.7.4 and VS2010 (without Phonon, I skipped installing DX for now). Next on my list was to compile PySide against that build to hopefully and finally get a compatible version of this dreaded Shiboken module. But I'd rather skip all that and just use yours, though I'm still really curious as to where you got it from, in case you didn't compile yourself :-)

In any way, if you still need or want more testers I'd love to give it a shot.

And as always, thanks for investing so much of your time into it.

Stefan

--
-------------------------------------------
Stefan Kubicek
-------------------------------------------
keyvis digital imagery
Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3
A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
Phone: +43/699/12614231
www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at
-- This email and its attachments are --
--confidential and for the recipient only--

[Steven Caron]

well that is what we are sorting out. if we need to compile our own PySide version/installer then guess what? the PySide license allows me to do that :)

i did build from source, but that was because i was trying to work around a bug in loading .ui files using the QUiLoader class.

so are you using Python 2.6.x? or 2.7.x?

s

          Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3

[Stefan Kubicek]

SI2014 looks quite attractive due to all the bug fixes, so 2.7.4 it will be for me soon.
I don't know if it's ok to mix Python versions, e.g. use Shiboken compiled against 2.6.x in a 2.7.x environment,
but even if it works I'd just feel...uneasy, never knowing if the next cryptic error message is due to mixing
versions, or my own fault.

> well that is what we are sorting out. if we need to compile our own PySide
> version/installer then guess what? the PySide license allows me to do that
> :)

That's exactly what made me look into PySide too. The license is very "copyleft" (if that's the right term).

>
> i did build from source, but that was because i was trying to work around a
> bug in loading .ui files using the QUiLoader class.
>
> so are you using Python 2.6.x? or 2.7.x?
>
> s
>
>
> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Stefan Kubicek <s...@tidbit-images.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi Steven,
>>
>> I tried to use PySide together with your PyQt4XSI plugin last year and
>> managed to get your basic demos running after replacing some lines of code
>> (I think it was mostly the import statements changed to point at
>> PySide.blah instead of the PyQt ones). No real problems I can remember, but
>> projects caught up with me and I couldn't try harder to find any.
>>
>> What proofed to be a major pita was (and still is) that I could not find
>> any x64 version of PySide that includes the Shiboken Python module out of
>> the box and is compatible with Python 2.6.x. There are a couple of

>> pre-built packages for download both from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~**
>> gohlke/pythonlibs/#pyside<http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#pyside>and
>> http://qt-project.org/wiki/**PySide_Binaries_Windows<http://qt-project.org/wiki/PySide_Binaries_Windows>,

>> ------------------------------**-------------
>> Stefan Kubicek
>> ------------------------------**-------------
>> keyvis digital imagery
>> Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3

>> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>> Phone: +43/699/12614231
>> www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at
>> -- This email and its attachments are --
>> --confidential and for the recipient only--
>>
>>
>


--
-------------------------------------------
Stefan Kubicek
-------------------------------------------
keyvis digital imagery

Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3

[Tim Crowson]

Steve,

I've got some emails going with Shotgun Support about this (concerning
Tank), but I figure I should just ask them here too. Until now, I
believe the requirements for using PyQt4Softimage were to have Softimage
use a system installation of Python 2.7.3. Which also forced the
installation of PyWin. With 2014 and the move to 2.7, is this
requirement still in place?

-Tim C.

Signa

[Steven Caron]

it was never a requirement but a suggestion. you can make it work by using built in python for softimage... but most don't want or know or want to know.

          Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3

       A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
         Phone:    +43/699/12614231
      www.keyvis.at  ste...@keyvis.at
--  This email and its attachments are   --
--confidential and for the recipient only--

--

Signa

[Steven Caron]

you can install whatever version of python you want if you use system install python and not the built in one. works better with pyqt and pyside anyways because they install to those system locations.

[Stefan Kubicek]

If I remember correctly I ended up copying PyQt (and later PySide) into the site-packages folder of Softs native Python folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Softimage 2013 SP1\Application\python\Lib\site-packages\) and that worked. No external Python or pyWin.

>>>>> gohlke/pythonlibs/#pyside<http**://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/**
>>>>> pythonlibs/#pyside <http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#pyside>>and
>>>>>
>>>>> http://qt-project.org/wiki/****PySide_Binaries_Windows<http://qt-project.org/wiki/**PySide_Binaries_Windows>
>>>>> <http:/**/qt-project.org/wiki/PySide_**Binaries_Windows<http://qt-project.org/wiki/PySide_Binaries_Windows>>,

>>>>> ------------------------------****-------------
>>>>> Stefan Kubicek
>>>>> ------------------------------****-------------
>>>>> keyvis digital imagery
>>>>> Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3

>>>>> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien
>>>>> Phone: +43/699/12614231
>>>>> www.keyvis.at ste...@keyvis.at
>>>>> -- This email and its attachments are --
>>>>> --confidential and for the recipient only--
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> Signa
>>
>

--
-------------------------------------------
Stefan Kubicek
-------------------------------------------

keyvis digital imagery
Alfred Feierfeilstraï¿œe 3

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

you could take the pyside dlls from a maya 2014 install, we figured all of those compilation issues. they're compiled for python 2.7 and vc2010.  these dlls won't work with python 2.6

[Steven Caron]

iicky... i will just provide an installer which is just their build system run vanilla. which includes shiboken... for now until they get it together.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

The difference is pySide isn't licensing hell, and AD is going that way.

I reckon that's reason enough to do whatever we can to speed up adoption and finding rough edges as soon as possible ;)

On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 10:25 AM, Jeremie Passerin <gere...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

[Jens Lindgren]

Would love to try it out Steven but I don't have time right now :(

I prefer to use PySide instead of PyQT so this is very welcomed.

 

/Jens

--

Jens Lindgren

--------------------------

Lead Technical Director

Magoo 3D Studios

[Julien Dubuisson]

Hi guys, 

We've been using PySide in Soft on Linux and Windows for a couple of months now and as Stefan said, the major pain was to compile Qt and PySide to get the missing shiboken module.

I used Qt 4.8.4, PySide 1.1.2 compiled against Python 2.5 with gcc 4.1.2 (Linux) and Python 2.6 x64 with VC2010 (Win). PySide is then deployed in a custom site-packages folder on the network that is added to the pythonpath.

Our PySide integration is not the one from Steven because I wasn't able to get the windowing stuff right on Linux, so I wrote a python plugin that handle the QApplication creation/destruction and uses a timer event to force the Qt loop update. It's still a little bit rough and the Qt dialogs are not parented to the Softimage window but so far it's stable and completely usable.

Anyway, I'm in to beta test a unified QtForSoftimage plugin on win and linux. 

Julien

[Tony Barbieri]

We've been running PySide in Softimage for awhile now.  There have been some small issues, but for the most part it seems to work.  There are definitely some strange cases with the way PySide interacts with Python's GC, and if you try to get too "fancy" with your code I've seen the desktop more than a few times.

I also prefer to use PySide due to licensing and the fact that a lot of apps are now shipping with it.  We're really trying to write cross platform tools with minimal abstractions.

-tony

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 4:29 AM, Jens Lindgren <jens.lin...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
-tony

[Stefan Kubicek]

> Our PySide integration is not the one from Steven because I wasn't able
> to
> get the windowing stuff right on Linux, so I wrote a python plugin that
> handle the QApplication creation/destruction and uses a timer event to
> force the Qt loop update. It's still a little bit rough and the Qt
> dialogs
> are not parented to the Softimage window but so far it's stable and
> completely usable.

I tried creating the QApplication and the hidden anchor window directly
via Python instead of using a compiled C++ plugin too (on Windoze, not
Linux) but got nothing but crashes. I found the prospect of making due
without a plugin that needs to be recompiled for every Softimage version
(I know reality looks different, but at least on paper) very appealing. I
even tried to implement all the mouse hooks via Python (there was a thread
about this some months ago), but I gave up after a day due to lack of
time. PyHok might be an alternative, but chances are good it wouldn't work
on Linux.
I imagine there are a couple of people on this list who'd love to get
PySide for Soft up and running on Linux, even if it is not responding to
mouse events. Do you mind sharing how you did it?

>> Magoo 3D Studios <http://www.magoo3dstudios.com/>

[Stefan Kubicek]

Thanks for your constructivism Luc-Eric, but downloading and installing
Maya to get a Softimage compatible version of PySide? That's a one-way
ticket, I'd rather compile myself and have a working solution I have a bit
more control over, even if it's just to get updates and bug fixes faster
when a new version of Qt or PySide is released.

[Steven Caron]

hey stefan, eric hulser at blur did an almost pure python version and
it was almost always an issue.

getting the window handle will always need a compiled plugin to expose
the function from c++ api to scripting.

the method he ended up with was using qwinmigrate. in pyqt it wasnt
exposed/wrapped so he and matt newell used sip to expose it. i believe
pyside already exposes it :)

as far as the mouse and keyboard hooking. my plugin uses key event
plugin written in python. i suggest using the same and the mouse
clicks are handled automatically.

*written with my thumbs

On May 14, 2013, at 1:25 PM, "Stefan Kubicek" <s...@tidbit-images.com>
wrote:

>

> Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3

[Guillaume Laforge]

> That's a one-way ticket


Common, we all know that Maya is a plugin for Softimage :D

>           Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3

[Stefan Kubicek]

Hi Steven,

I managed to compile and create a Windows installer for PySide 1.1.3 using
Qt 4.8.4, VS2010 and Python 2.7.4, all x64. For a quick test I also
modified the PyQtForSoftimage Python scripts to use the PySide libs
instead of PyQt and I was able to run the ExampleDialog and
ExampleSignalSlot Examples that come with your addon.
The ExampleMenu example throws an error when clicking on one of the menu
items from the popup, it looks like PySide expects a slightly different
syntax, which should be fixable:

TypeError: 'PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_' called with wrong argument types:
# PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_(int, int)
# Supported signatures:
# PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_()
# PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_(list, PySide.QtCore.QPoint,
PySide.QtGui.QAction = None)
# PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_(list, PySide.QtCore.QPoint,
PySide.QtGui.QAction, PySide.QtGui.QWidget)
# PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_(PySide.QtCore.QPoint, PySide.QtGui.QAction =
None)

Besides that it's looking good.

How far did you get, and is there anything else to consider?

Also, I don't want to rush ahead, but if it's of any use to you or any one
else (and legal, I suppose?) I can put that installer (or just
shiboken.pyd) and maybe even the modified Plugin scripts up for download
for people to experiment with in the mean time.
I also thought of documenting the build process (also as a reminder for me
should I ever have to do this again), since most of the info is scattered
all over the net and there are likely others who need to compile
themselves too at some point and could save a lot of time with all info in
one place. Let me know what you think.

[Steven Caron]

thanks for the offer stefan, but i have an installer already and i plan on making it available once it gets some testing.

a made a module to abstract the python qt bindings (combined a few that i found online), this module attempts to remove any need for different syntax. that code is available now on the github page. also you might have an old copy of my plugin because there is a fourth example. its called ExampleUIFile and this is where i am still having toruble. i am trying to make it work properly with the abstraction module but with some issues.

as far as the QMenu is concerned that looks like you used the wrong arguments. my code works without modification... menu.exec_(QCursor.pos())

from what i know, it is legal to provide a link to the precompiled installer.

i think improved documentation is in order, feel free to fork the repro and make changes to the readme.creole then send me a pull request.

s

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 6:30 AM, Stefan Kubicek <s...@tidbit-images.com> wrote:

Hi Steven,

I managed to compile and create a Windows installer for PySide 1.1.3 using Qt 4.8.4, VS2010 and Python 2.7.4, all x64. For a quick test I also modified the PyQtForSoftimage Python scripts to use the PySide libs instead of PyQt and I was able to run the ExampleDialog and ExampleSignalSlot Examples that come with your addon.
The ExampleMenu example throws an error when clicking on one of the menu items from the popup, it looks like PySide expects a slightly different syntax, which should be fixable:

TypeError: 'PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_' called with wrong argument types:
#   PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_(int, int)
# Supported signatures:
#   PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_()
#   PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_(list, PySide.QtCore.QPoint, PySide.QtGui.QAction = None)
#   PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_(list, PySide.QtCore.QPoint, PySide.QtGui.QAction, PySide.QtGui.QWidget)
#   PySide.QtGui.QMenu.exec_(PySide.QtCore.QPoint, PySide.QtGui.QAction = None)

Besides that it's looking good.

How far did you get, and is there anything else to consider?

Also, I don't want to rush ahead, but if it's of any use to you or any one else (and legal, I suppose?) I can put that installer (or just shiboken.pyd) and maybe even the modified Plugin scripts up for download for people to experiment with in the mean time.

I also thought of documenting the build process (also as a reminder for me should I ever have to do this again), since most of the info is scattered all over the net and there are likely others who need to compile themselves too at some point and could save a lot of time with all info in one place. Let me know what you think.from

[Xavier Lapointe]

For windows binaries, this website is quite awesome: http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#pyside

Haven't tried their installer though for Pyside, so no idea if it includes Shiboken or not.

[Stefan Kubicek]

It does not ;-)

[Julien Dubuisson]

I just shared the pure Python plugin I wrote to get PySide working in Softimage on Linux and Windows: https://bitbucket.org/rodeofx/rdoqtforsoftimage

Feel free to try it out. 

Feedback is welcome as there is obviously room for improvement. 

Thanks Steven Caron for letting me re-using code from his plugin (events, signals and examples).

[Steven Caron]

thanks julien

and i think your code is giving a hint on how i should have been getting around the objects going out of scope and getting garbage collected.

s

[Michal Doniec]

I just stick them into QtGui

QtGui.dialog = dialog

They won't get garbage collected this way. I think it's the same in Julien code.

--
----------
Michal
http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mdoniec

[Leo Quensel]

I had this problem frequently when developing our pipeline here. Beware of QThreads that get garbage collected before they have finished running.

The key was to store them inside a list which does not get collected (on module or class level) and delete them after they have finished running.

 

Gesendet: Mittwoch, 29. Mai 2013 um 10:10 Uhr
Von: "Michal Doniec" <don...@gmail.com>
An: softimage <soft...@listproc.autodesk.com>
Betreff: Re: PyQtForSoftimage with PySide support

[Steven Caron]

i think he is using a module level global attribute, but i will explore both when i get the chance.

s

[Julien Dubuisson]

As Steven says I use a global list attribute in my Qt module, but I'm afraid I'm not popping any dialog from the list when they are closed. 

I suppose that could be a problem in some cases. I will fix that when I have some time.

[Stefan Kubicek]

Hi all,

for the time being I have put together the PySide & Qt build instructions  for whoever is interested:

http://plutometro.blogspot.co.at/2013/06/compiling-x64-pyside-using-vs2010.html

I can put that PySide installer up for download too in case ne1 want's to try it out, just let me know.

@Steven: your abstraction module sounds like a really nice idea, I hope you get it all sorted without too much a hassle and future maintenance requirements (more differences between PySide and PyQt might be introduced with a later version of PySide, which in turn requires an update of that module?)

@everybody: What's the general consensus of mixing compiler versions in a project? E.g. is it legal/safe to compile PySide with VS2010 using Qt libs that were built with VS2008? This is what's really irritating me atm: The absence of any publicly available x64 Qt installer compiled with VS2010, hence I'm building it myself. There really seems to be no such thing anywhere, and it's not like VS2010 can be considered exotic, can it?

Stefan

--

-------------------------------------------
Stefan Kubicek
-------------------------------------------
keyvis digital imagery

Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

C++ libraries talking to one another and compiled with different
version of Visual C++ would just crash on "new" and "delete", usually.
It either works or doesn't work at all, it's not hard to tell if
there is a problem. Python, Pyside and Qt should all three use the
same compiler

One comment about your blog post. While Maya is using a modified
version of the Qt libraries, all the Qt point releases are binary
compatible together. In other words, any version of Pyside compiled
with some variete of Qt 4.8 will work with any variety of Qt 4.8.x,
including the maya one. On the Mac we don't even compile PySide, we
just take the binary off the web site. On Windows we had to compile
because of the compiler. On Windows you can also use cmake to
generate a visual studio project file and compile in the GUI if you
prefer that.

[Steven Caron]

yes, which might save users from having to rewrite any code in their application/widget.