Can't get custom PyQt5 widget plugin to show up in Qt designer (macos)

Question

I would like to make a custom widget plugin for Qt Designer using python (3.7 with pyqt5). Everything should work, but it doesn't show up in Qt Designer.

Here is what I have done so far after much trial and error and a little help from others with similar issues (Qt Designer: could not find custom PyQt widget plugins and Custom QWidgets. How do I build/get the pyqt5 plugin for Qt Designer on Mac?)

• I installed Qt Designer (Creator) 5.13 from the Qt website.

• I installed SIP (4.9.18) and PyQt5 (5.13.0) from source rather than pip because it was necessary to get the libpyqt5.dylib file that is necessary (no pyqt5-tools for mac). I put this file in the /Users/[user]/Qt/5.13.0/clang_64/plugins/designer directory

• I just want to get the setup correct before making my own plugin. So, I downloaded analogclock.py and analogclockplugin.py from https://github.com/baoboa/pyqt5/tree/master/examples/designer/plugins and modified the plugins.py file like this:

from PyQt5.QtCore import QLibraryInfo, QProcess, QProcessEnvironment


# Tell Qt Designer where it can find the directory containing the plugins and
# Python where it can find the widgets.
env = QProcessEnvironment.systemEnvironment()
env.insert('PYQTDESIGNERPATH', '[path to the plugin.py files]/designer_plugins')
env.insert('PYTHONPATH', '[path to the widgets]/designer_widgets')

# Start Designer.
designer = QProcess()
designer.setProcessEnvironment(env)
designer_bin = QLibraryInfo.location(QLibraryInfo.BinariesPath)

designer_bin = '/Users/[user]/Qt/5.13.0/clang_64/bin/Designer.app/Contents/MacOS/Designer'

designer.start(designer_bin)
designer.waitForFinished(-1)

• I ran plugins.py. Qt Designer opens correctly, and when I checked the Designer-->About Plugins I see libpyqt5.dylib inside Loaded Plugins. However, the PyAnalogClock widget was not inside of it and the plugin widget was not in the left-side widget box.

• I tried to debug by setting environmental variables from the terminal like this:

[user]$ export QT_DEBUG_PLUGINS=1
[user]$ export PYQTDESIGNERPATH='[path to the widgets]/designer_widgets'
[user]$ export PYTHONPATH='[path to the widgets]/designer_widgets'

[user]$ /Users/[user]/Qt/5.13.0/clang_64/bin/Designer.app/Contents/MacOS/Designer

The relevant portion of the output was this:

Found metadata in lib /Users/[user]/Qt/5.13.0/clang_64/plugins/designer/libpyqt5.dylib, metadata=
{
    "IID": "org.qt-project.Qt.QDesignerCustomWidgetCollectionInterface",
    "archreq": 0,
    "className": "PyCustomWidgets",
    "debug": false,
    "version": 331008
}


loaded library "/Users/[user]/Qt/5.13.0/clang_64/plugins/designer/libpyqt5.dylib"

and toward the end

loaded library "Python.framework/Versions/3.7/Python"
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PyQt5'
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PyQt5'

• When I did not export PYQTDESIGNERPATH and PYTHONPATH from the command line, this error disappeared. But of course, then Qt doesn't know where the files are.

In any case, that is my current state. I do not understand why the PyQt5 module cannot be found by Qt Designer or what else I can try to get this to work.

Answer 1

here is an 🤦‍♂️ momemt So, I found this on the PyQt reference guide which I had somehow overlooked

• For a simple but complete and fully documented example of a custom widget that defines new Qt signals, slots and properties, and its plugin, look in the examples/designer/plugins directory of the PyQt5 source package

ok. did that. ran the demo. it works fine. Copied the whole plugins directory somewhere else. still fine. So I must have done something funky naming the folders or something. anyway, now I will just work on making my own plugin. days of frustration because of being dumb. but happy it works.