External resources

This document contains links to external libraries and resources that are extensively used in the project. If one wants to modify significantly the code, it is recommended to skim the documentation of these libraries to understand what they can do and their design goals.

PyQt

We use exclusively the PyQt library for the GUI. It is a Python binding for the Qt library, which is a C++ library for creating GUIs. The PyQt6 library is a very powerful and flexible library, and it is the most popular library for creating GUIs in Python. It is also very well documented, and there are many tutorials and examples available online.

Model/View architecture

For complex tree and tables widgets, we use the model/view architecture. The python reference can be found here. This documentation contains the reference needed when working with the model/view architecture.

Jumping straight into the source code of an already working model can be overwhelming. An introductory tutorial can be found here. Following it and running the examples will help to get accustomed to the model/view architecture we use. However, this tutorial is in C++, so if you want to follow it, you will need to translate the examples to Python.

Qt Designer

When setting up widgets, it is often easier to use Qt Designer. This is a graphical tool that allows you to create and edit widgets and layouts much more easily than doing it in code.

Attrs

attrs is a Python library that allows you to define classes with attributes in a more concise way. It is used in many places in the code for example for device drivers and device configurations. The documentation is worth reading to understand how, why and when to use it. It is not a strong requirement to use attrs in this project, but it can be helpful. It works well when classes are data classes, i.e. classes that have several attributes and a couple methods that don’t perform complex operations. Otherwise, regular classes might be more appropriate.

Cattrs

cattrs is a Python library that allows you to un/structure custom objects to/from basic collections (dicts, lists, etc) that can be stored natively by many serialization libraries. This library is useful to put settings and configurations in permanent storage. It is possible to customize cattrs to handle custom classes and types. By default, it can handle attrs classes.

SQLAlchemy

SQLAlchemy is a Python library that allows you to interact with SQL databases. It is a very powerful library that can be used to create, modify and query databases. It is used in the project to store device and sequence settings, as well as acquired data.