• InstallingPyQTCommercialWin

Installing qt/pyqt commercial under windows XP with MinGW

The problem

Currently, there are no binaries for py-qt commercial version because of the many different ways that Qt can be built. This tutorial will try to explain how to compile and install QT/QScintilla/Sip/Pyqt using the GPL MinGW tools. Note that this is not the only way to install it, you may prefer using the M$ compiler, which is faster.

Pre requisites

Of course you will need a python version (mine is 2.3.3), also make sure that you don't have a compiler like Borland or M$ in your PATH environnement variable.

For the installation, you'll need:

• MinGW, mingw32-make and the win-32 api, all available on MinGW website

• The QT win installer and the archives of py-qt, sip and qscintilla, all available when you buy py-qt.
• Of course you'll need a valid licence of qt and pyqt

Tweaking python dll

As explained here, you need to tweak the python dll.

Here's what you need to do:

• Download pexports

• Unzip the archive somewhere, open a command prompt and cd to the extracted directory
• and just run (change the paths/names according to your python install):

pexports c:\Windows\System32\python23.dll > python23.def
dlltool --dllname python23.dll --def python23.def --output-lib libpython23.a
copy libpython23.a c:\python23\libs\

Installing MinGW

You need to install MinGW, mingw32-make and the win32-api files.

• install MinGW (i choose the binary "MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe")
• install mingw32-make (i choose the binary "mingw32-make-3.80.0-3.exe")
• Modify your PATH environment variable and add: C:\mingw\bin (paths are separated with ";")
• and finally untar the w32api (i choose w32api-2.5.tar.gz), and copy the lib and include directories on your MinGW install dir (c:/MinGW for me)

Installing QT

First, read the docs provided. Here's what I have done:

• Launched the qt-win-commercial-3.3.2.exe installer
• On the options screen i chose MinGW32 as compiler and unchecked the build examples options (because it takes much time to compile)
• On the Configuration screen, tab "Advanced" i checked the styles/WindowsXP/plugin radio button.
• the compile step is _really_ slow, so be patient.

Installing sip

First, read the docs provided. Here's the procedure:

• Unzip the sip archive somewhere, open a command prompt and cd to the extracted directory
• Run the following commands: (if you have message telling that make is not a valid command, try "mingw32-make" instead)

c:\python23\python configure.py -p win32-g++
make
make install

Installing QScintilla

First, read the docs provided. Here's the procedure:

• Unzip the QScintilla archive somewhere, open a command prompt and cd to the extracted directory
• Run the following commands: (if you have message telling that make is not a valid command, try "mingw32-make" instead)

c:\python23\python configure.py
make
make install

Installing PyQT

First, read the docs provided. Here's the procedure:

• Unzip the PyQT archive somewhere, open a command prompt and cd to the extracted directory
• Be sure to copy the provided licence to the sip directory
• Run the following commands: (if you have message telling that make is not a valid command, try "mingw32-make" instead)

c:\python23\python configure.py
make
make install

Testing

Ok, that should be ok. Here's a test script (from the PyQT tutorial 1):

import sys
import qt

a = qt.QApplication(sys.argv)

hello = qt.QPushButton("Hello world!", None)
hello.resize(100, 30)

a.setMainWidget(hello)
hello.show()
sys.exit(a.exec_loop())

If the script runs OK your done !