In this tutorial, we’ll explore how to create a graphical user interface (GUI) with PySide6 that utilizes combo boxes. Combo boxes are dropdown menus that allow users to select options from a list. We’ll build a simple application that demonstrates the usage of combo boxes in PySide6.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have Python and PySide6 installed on your system. You can install PySide6 using pip:

pip install PySide6

Designing the GUI

Our GUI will consist of a combo box to select items, a label to display the selected item, and a button to perform an action based on the selected item.

combo_box_app.py

import sys
from PySide6.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget, QVBoxLayout, QComboBox, QLabel, QPushButton

class ComboBoxApp(QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.initUI()

    def initUI(self):
        self.setWindowTitle('ComboBox Demo')
        self.setGeometry(100, 100, 300, 200)

        layout = QVBoxLayout()

        self.comboBox = QComboBox()
        self.comboBox.addItem("Option 1")
        self.comboBox.addItem("Option 2")
        self.comboBox.addItem("Option 3")
        layout.addWidget(self.comboBox)

        self.label = QLabel("Selected Item: ")
        layout.addWidget(self.label)

        self.button = QPushButton("Perform Action")
        self.button.clicked.connect(self.performAction)
        layout.addWidget(self.button)

        self.setLayout(layout)

    def performAction(self):
        selected_item = self.comboBox.currentText()
        self.label.setText("Selected Item: " + selected_item)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    comboBoxApp = ComboBoxApp()
    comboBoxApp.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec())

Understanding the Code

We create a class ComboBoxApp inheriting from QWidget.
In the initUI method, we set up the layout, including the combo box, label, and button.
We add items to the combo box using the addItem method.
The performAction method retrieves the currently selected item from the combo box and updates the label accordingly.
The button is connected to the performAction method using the clicked.connect() method.

Running the Application

Save the code to a file (e.g., combo_box_app.py) and execute it using Python:

python combo_box_app.py

You should see the GUI window with the combo box, label, and button. Try selecting different items from the combo box and clicking the button to see the label update accordingly.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to create a GUI application with PySide6 that utilizes combo boxes. Combo boxes are useful for providing users with a selection of options in a dropdown menu. You can further customize and enhance this application by adding more items to the combo box, implementing different actions based on the selected item, or styling the GUI components to match your preferences. Experiment with the code and explore the possibilities of PySide6 to create even more interactive GUI applications!

Creating a ComboBox-Based GUI with PySide6 (Part 3)