Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] new feature work: qtgui support in grc

[Alexandru Csete]

Hi Josh,

I had a few moments to try it out. It worked very well and I think it
will be useful.

I got a little confused when I cloned the repository because it said
there was no HEAD (or something like that) and the directory was
empty, but I could still checkout to the wip/qtgui/grc branch. I hope
I got the right thing.

You mention engineering notation for the widget. I believe for the
text entry it is quite straightforward (xml attached - I just copied
the code from the gr-qtgui example).

I will do more tests during the coming days.

Alex


On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 2:52 AM, Josh Blum <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hey list,
>
> I have been working on supporting PyQt widgets and the qtgui sinks in
> the Gnuradio Companion. Get the code on my wip/qtgui/grc branch on
> jblum.git http://gnuradio.org/cgit/jblum.git/log/?h=wip/qtgui/grc
>
> Available widgets:
>  * qtgui plotter (dft, scope, etc)
>  * tabbed panel
>  * slider
>  * combo box
>  * radio buttons
>  * text entry
>  * label
>
> 1) The slider adds a new requirement of PyQwt (python Qwt bindings). Qwt
> should already be installed for the qtgui sinks themselves.
>
> 2) The qtgui and wxgui widgets are distinctly separated. Previously, the
> "variable slider" was a wx slider form. Now, there is a WX GUI Slider
> and a QT GUI Slider. And the generate options now have a QT GUI option.
> You cannot mix and match widgets from different graphics libraries.
>
> 3) No attempt was made to make the existence of different graphics
> toolkits transparent to the user. That would have been a huge pain on my
> part and I couldn't try new things. If this Qt thing catches on, I am
> considering a migration script from wx->qt.
>
> 4) The Qt widgets in grc do not have a python wrapper/forms library like
> they do in gnuradio. All the generated code uses the PyQt API directly.
> This is in-part possible because Qwt supplies its own set of useful
> wrappers around Qt widgets. Examples: http://qwt.sourceforge.net/sliders.png
>
> 5) Each widget block in grc has a gui hint parameter. This parameter is
> a combination of the grid parameter and notebook parameter seen in the
> wx widget blocks. It also allowed the implementation code to be a lot
> more generic.
>
> Whats missing?
> I feel that the widgets still need a bit of polishing. Engineering
> notation would be nice. I'd like to see features in the wx scope sink
> brought to the qtgui scope such as trigger modes and multiple channels.
> I think the qt equivalent of the numbersink would be nice too (and that
> could use some of those real fancy qwt widets):
> http://read.pudn.com/downloads186/sourcecode/embed/872381/qwt/doc/images/dials2.png
>
> Why qtgui stuff?
> The WX stuff in gnuradio is fairly polished in comparison; and when it
> works, it works. But we have seen many issues with wx outside of the
> linux+x86 world, not to mention opengl issues on the x86. I hope that
> the qt stuff is a viable, cross platform option for live gnuradio
> plotting and graphical applications.
>
> Please try it out. Feedback is welcome!
> -Josh
>
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qtgui_entry.xml
Description: Text Data