Automatically convert to py file when ui file is updated in PySide

If you are using QtDesigner to create a .ui file, you will have to convert it to a py file with pyside-uic every time you update the file, which is very annoying.

When the ui file is updated, write a script that automatically converts with pyside-uic.

Use the watchdog module

File update monitoring is a very useful module that uses the watchdog module. Installation is easy with pip.

pip install watchdog

Next, create a file called watchdog_uic.py in the root directory where the ui file exists.

#! usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import unicode_literals, print_function, absolute_import
import os
import time
import subprocess
from watchdog.observers import Observer
from watchdog.events import PatternMatchingEventHandler

BASE_DIR = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))


class UicHandler(PatternMatchingEventHandler):
    def on_modified(self, event):
        ui_file = event.src_path
        output_file = os.path.splitext(ui_file)[0] + "_ui.py"
        cmd = " ".join([
            "pyside-uic",
            "-o " + output_file,
            ui_file
        ])
        print(cmd)
        subprocess.call(cmd, shell=True)


def main():
    while True:
        event_handler = UicHandler(["*.ui"])
        observer = Observer()
        observer.schedule(event_handler, BASE_DIR, recursive=True)
        observer.start()
        try:
            while True:
                time.sleep(1)
        except KeyboardInterrupt:
            observer.stop()
        observer.join()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

In the above example, the .ui file is changed to the naming convention _ui.py. Please implement the naming convention rules yourself.

python watchdog_uic.py

If you start this script, it will monitor and convert all ui files in the directory under the script file.

I've been using watchdog for automatic conversion for about half a year, but it's too easy to go back to manual conversion anymore.

Postscript 2017-01-06

"The strongest PySide / PyQt development environment is also PyCharm" I wrote a method for automatic conversion on PyCharm. Please refer to that as well.