Correct way to paint progressively with pyqt5

Question

I've a widget that is basically a circle. I want to draw it progressively so I need to draw it in steps (imo).

With the following code, I have achieved what I want. However, there's a problem. I'm passing a new event to the paintEvent function, because if I don't, the image doesn't get updated until everything is finished, so I achieve nothing I wanted.

The widget code

import sys
import time
from PyQt5.QtCore import Qt, QRect
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget, QCheckBox, QDesktopWidget

from PyQt5.QtGui import QPen, QPainter, QPaintEvent, QConicalGradient, QColor, QBrush

class Circle(QWidget):

    def __init__(self, size, color):
        super().__init__()

        self.loadingAngle = 0
        self.width = 0
        self.color = color
        self.pixmap_opacity = 1

        self.resize(size, size);
        self.center()

        self.initUI()

    def initUI(self):

        self.width = 15
        self.loadingAngle = 0
        self.show()

    def center(self):
        qr = self.frameGeometry()
        cp = QDesktopWidget().availableGeometry().center()
        qr.moveCenter(cp)
        self.move(qr.topLeft())

    def paintEvent(self, qevent):

        self.setWindowFlags(Qt.FramelessWindowHint)
        self.setAttribute(Qt.WA_TranslucentBackground)
        self.setStyleSheet("background:transparent;")

        drawingRect = QRect()
        drawingRect.setX(qevent.rect().x() + self.width)
        drawingRect.setY(qevent.rect().y() + self.width)
        drawingRect.setWidth(qevent.rect().width() - self.width * 2)
        drawingRect.setHeight(qevent.rect().height() - self.width * 2)

        painter = QPainter(self)
        painter.setRenderHint(QPainter.Antialiasing)

        gradient = QConicalGradient()
        gradient.setCenter(drawingRect.center())
        gradient.setAngle(90)
        gradient.setColorAt(1, QColor(0,0,0))
        gradient.setColorAt(0, QColor(self.color[0], self.color[1],self.color[2]))

        arcLengthApproximation = self.width + self.width / 3
        pen = QPen(QBrush(gradient), self.width)
        pen.setCapStyle(Qt.RoundCap)
        painter.setPen(pen)
        painter.drawArc(drawingRect, 90 * 16 - arcLengthApproximation, -self.loadingAngle * 16)
        #time.sleep(0.25)

        if self.loadingAngle < 360:
            self.loadingAngle += 1
            #self.paintEvent(QDrawEvent())
            self.paintEvent(QPaintEvent())

The problematic line

self.paintEvent(QPaintEvent())

This line produces several errors, but even with them, I does what I want.

1. If I pass the qevent from the function itself to this new call, the image doesn't get updated as I said before.

2. If I create this new QPaintEvent, it does work. However, the errors are:

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "/home/btc/Escritorio/SinestesiaRCB/Clases/Widget.py", line 68, in paintEvent self.paintEvent(QPaintEvent())

TypeError: arguments did not match any overloaded call: QPaintEvent(QRegion): not enough arguments

QPaintEvent(QRect): not enough arguments

QPaintEvent(QPaintEvent): not enough arguments

QBackingStore::endPaint() called with active painter on backingstore paint device

These errors may be comming from the other lines like:

qevent.rect().x()

Since the new event is an empty one.

So basically my question is, how should I do it to make it correctly, meaning achieve what I want without errors?

PS. What I mean by progressively. This has been done creating several widgets, one second after the former each one.

Answer 1

You should never call paintEvent directly, you must use update() to call it indirectly. On the other hand if you want to be called every so often you should use a QTimer or better a QTimeLine in this case.

import sys
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets

class Circle(QtWidgets.QWidget):
    def __init__(self, size, color):
        super().__init__()
        self._loading_angle = 0
        self.width = 0
        self.color = color
        self.pixmap_opacity = 1
        self.resize(size, size)
        self.setWindowFlags(QtCore.Qt.FramelessWindowHint)
        self.setAttribute(QtCore.Qt.WA_TranslucentBackground)
        self.setStyleSheet("background:transparent;")
        self.center()
        self.initUI()

        timeline = QtCore.QTimeLine(4000, self)
        timeline.setFrameRange(0, 360)
        timeline.frameChanged.connect(self.setLoadingAngle)
        timeline.start()

    def initUI(self):
        self.width = 15
        self.setLoadingAngle(0)
        self.show()

    def loadingAngle(self):
        return self._loading_angle

    def setLoadingAngle(self, angle):
        self._loading_angle = angle
        self.update()

    loadingAngle = QtCore.pyqtProperty(int, fget=loadingAngle, fset=setLoadingAngle)

    def center(self):
        qr = self.frameGeometry()
        cp = QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget().availableGeometry().center()
        qr.moveCenter(cp)
        self.move(qr.topLeft())

    def paintEvent(self, event):
        painter = QtGui.QPainter(self)
        painter.setRenderHint(QtGui.QPainter.Antialiasing)
        drawingRect  = QtCore.QRect(QtCore.QPoint(), self.rect().size() - 2*self.width*QtCore.QSize(1, 1))
        drawingRect.moveCenter(self.rect().center())

        gradient = QtGui.QConicalGradient()
        gradient.setCenter(drawingRect.center())
        gradient.setAngle(90)
        gradient.setColorAt(1, QtGui.QColor(0,0,0))
        gradient.setColorAt(0, self.color)
        arcLengthApproximation = self.width + self.width / 3
        pen = QtGui.QPen(QtGui.QBrush(gradient), self.width)
        pen.setCapStyle(QtCore.Qt.RoundCap)
        painter.setPen(pen)
        painter.drawArc(drawingRect, 90 * 16 - arcLengthApproximation, -self._loading_angle * 16)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
    w = Circle(400, QtGui.QColor("blue"))
    w.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())