PyQt6 Layout Management: Creating User-Friendly GUI Applications

In this lesson we want to learn about PyQt6 Layout Management: Creating User-Friendly GUI Applications.

What is PyQt6 ?

PyQt6 is powerful GUI library for Python that is based on the Qt GUI toolkit. one of its key features is the ability to create well designed and user friendly GUI applications with easy. this is achieved through the use of layout management in PyQt6.

In this article we are going to learn how layout management works in PyQt6 and how you can use it to create user friendly GUI applications.

What is Layout Management in PyQt6 ?

Layout management in PyQt6 is used for organizing the widgets in GUI application in organized way. it involves arranging widgets in specific way, such as side by side, vertically or in grid, and then specifying how they should adjust when the window is resized.

PyQt6 provides several layout management classes that you can use to arrange your widgets, for example we have QHBoxLayout, QVBoxLayout, and QGridLayout. these classes allow you to control the size and position of the widgets in your application and also you can specify how they should adjust when the window is resized.

Using QHBoxLayout and QVBoxLayout

QHBoxLayout and QVBoxLayout are the simplest of layout management classes in PyQt6. yhey allows you to arrange widgets horizontally (QHBoxLayout) or vertically (QVBoxLayout), and you can add multiple widgets to each layout.

this is an example of how you can use QHBoxLayout to arrange two buttons side by side:

import sys
from PyQt6.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget, QHBoxLayout, QPushButton

class MainWindow(QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()

        layout = QHBoxLayout()

        button1 = QPushButton("Button 1")
        button2 = QPushButton("Button 2")

        layout.addWidget(button1)
        layout.addWidget(button2)

        self.setLayout(layout)

app = QApplication(sys.argv)
window = MainWindow()
window.show()
sys.exit(app.exec())

import sys

from PyQt6.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget, QHBoxLayout, QPushButton

class MainWindow(QWidget):

def __init__(self):

super().__init__()

layout = QHBoxLayout()

button1 = QPushButton("Button 1")

button2 = QPushButton("Button 2")

layout.addWidget(button1)

layout.addWidget(button2)

self.setLayout(layout)

app = QApplication(sys.argv)

window = MainWindow()

window.show()

sys.exit(app.exec())

Run the complete code and this will be the result.

PyQt6 Layout Management: Creating User-Friendly GUI Applications

Using QGridLayout

QGridLayout is more flexible layout management class that allows you to arrange widgets in grid. you can specify number of rows and columns in grid, as well as the position of each widget.

this is an example of how you can use QGridLayout to arrange four buttons in a 2×2 grid:

import sys
from PyQt6.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget, QGridLayout, QPushButton

class MainWindow(QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()

        layout = QGridLayout()

        button1 = QPushButton("Button 1")
        button2 = QPushButton("Button 2")
        button3 = QPushButton("Button 3")
        button4 = QPushButton("Button 4")

        layout.addWidget(button1, 0, 0)
        layout.addWidget(button2, 0, 1)
        layout.addWidget(button3, 1, 0)
        layout.addWidget(button4, 1, 1)

        self.setLayout(layout)

app = QApplication(sys.argv)
window = MainWindow()
window.show()
sys.exit(app.exec())

import sys

from PyQt6.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget, QGridLayout, QPushButton

class MainWindow(QWidget):

def __init__(self):

super().__init__()

layout = QGridLayout()

button1 = QPushButton("Button 1")

button2 = QPushButton("Button 2")

button3 = QPushButton("Button 3")

button4 = QPushButton("Button 4")

layout.addWidget(button1, 0, 0)

layout.addWidget(button2, 0, 1)

layout.addWidget(button3, 1, 0)

layout.addWidget(button4, 1, 1)