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Overview

In this API Reference we will cover relevant classes and functions which are part of the QtWidgets module. The QtWidgets module contains classes that provide a set of UI elements to create classic desktop-style graphical user interfaces (GUI's). The QWidget class is the base class for all UI objects, and the QLayout class is the base class for all layout objects. An overview of the classes and functions in the QtWidgets module is provided at the bottom of this page.

Note

Methods from parent classes (i.e. QWidget and QLayout) are not repeated in the reference of each subclass. However, as always in Python ( 🤓 ), these methods are applicable to all subclasses.

Note

Note the difference between QtWidgets and QWidget, which are a module and class respectively. Convince yourself by examining the following code: 

from PySide6 import QtWidgets
from PySide6.QtWidgets import QWidget

# The following two lines are equivalent:
widget = QtWidgets.QWidget()
widget = QWidget()
In the above code we create an instance of the QWidget in two ways. In practice we do not use direct instances of QWidget to build our GUI, but rather use its subclasses (see the list below).

All classes from the QtWidgets module:

  • QApplication: Manages the GUI application's control flow and main settings.
  • QLayout: Base class of all layout objects in QtWidgets.

  • QWidget: Base class of all widget objects in QtWidgets.

  • Subclasses derived from QLayout:

    • QHBoxLayout: Manages a horizontal layout of widgets.
    • QVBoxLayout: Manages a vertical layout of widgets.
    • QGridLayout: Manages a grid layout where space is divided up into rows and columns.
    • QFormLayout: Manages a layout where space is divided in a left column with labels and right column with widgets.

  • Subclasses derived from QWidget:

    • QMainWindow: Provides a framework for building an application's user interface.
    • QGroupBox: Provides a frame, a title on top, and can display various other widgets inside itself.
    • QTextEdit: Displays text and allows the user to edit it.
    • QLineEdit: A widget that allows the user to enter and edit a single line of plain text.
    • QFileDialog: Provides a dialog that allows the user to select files or directories.
    • QCheckBox: Toggle button with a checkbox indicator.
    • QLabel: A widget that displays text.
    • QComboBox: A widget that allows the user to choose from a list of options.
    • QSpinBox: A widget that allows the user to choose a number from a range.
    • QDoubleSpinBox: A widget that allows the user to choose a floating-point number from a range.
    • QPushButton: A push button that can be clicked by the user.