{"id":336,"date":"2023-10-20T21:12:44","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T21:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/?p=336"},"modified":"2023-10-20T21:12:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T21:12:45","slug":"python-gui-for-visual-basic-6-programmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/20\/python-gui-for-visual-basic-6-programmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Python GUI for Visual Basic 6 Programmer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I spent decades developing complex software using Visual Basic 6 for our oceanographic science program. I am not a programmer but a biological oceanographer with some computer aptitude. I took Fortran and Pascal programming in college. When hired at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, I took over a data acquistion program from a colleague who wrote it in Basic. Most higher level programming languages are similar in structure such as ‘for loops’ or ‘if…then’, so it mainly comes down to semantics. So I taught myself QuickBasic then when Windows became our primary operating system, Visual Basic. I considered Visual C++ but Visual Basic was so quick and easy to read and debug. I never switched. So decades of Visual Basic programs starting with Windows 3.11, 95. 98…all the way to Windows 7. Then I retired but my legacy is my Visual Basic data acquisition and processing programs. They are still used in 2023 but the migration of Python is happening. A new programmer for the oceanographic seagoing program is working on re-developing\/re-writing my VB programs in Python. I hope to help and one tool I found is QtDesigner.
If you install Anaconda Python, it installs the PyQt & QtDesigner. Anaconda is a great amalgam of Python tools & it can be confusing to mentally organize the various packages it includes. QtDesigner is what I’m mainly interested in and you have to hunt for designer.exe under the Anaconda installation dir, usually: “Users\/username\/anaconda3\/Library\/bin\/designer.exe”.
There are plenty of way to install PyQt & QtDesigner but I find using Anaconda’s install package, although bloated, my favorite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Create a shortcut to designer.exe on your desktop and open the python gui. Start by Create Main Window and you’ll see a very Visual Basic-like GUI development environment. Select a component from the toolbox by single click-hold<\/strong> then drag<\/strong> onto the Main Window. The properties windows on the right is very much like Visual Basic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of tutorials on how to create a python app with QtDesigner online & on YouTube. If you are looking for a Visual Basic type of GUI tool to develop Python apps or to migrate your VB programs. QtDesigner may be a good place to start.
I tried RealBasic, which has been rename Xojo, and was successful at quickly writing some apps for the later version of Windows. It’s still being developed but is probably another dead-end for passing on your source code. Although it’s a modern, multi-platform Basic programming language environment. Most of the current generation of programmers prefer something like Python. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent decades developing complex software using Visual Basic 6 for our oceanographic science program. I am not a programmer but a biological oceanographer with some computer aptitude. I took Fortran and Pascal programming in college. When hired at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, I took over a data acquistion program from a colleague who wrote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-software-computers","category-windows"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}