PyQt4: Difference between QWidget and QMainWindow

Question

When reading through a PyQt4 tutorial, sometimes the examples uses QtGui.QMainWindow, sometimes it uses QtGui.QWidget.

Question: How do you tell when to use which?

import sys
from PyQt4 import QtGui


class Example(QtGui.QMainWindow):

    def __init__(self):
        super(Example, self).__init__()

        self.initUI()

    def initUI(self):               

        self.statusBar().showMessage('Ready')

        self.setGeometry(300, 300, 250, 150)
        self.setWindowTitle('Statusbar')    
        self.show()


def main():

    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    ex = Example()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Another code example:

import sys
from PyQt4 import QtGui, QtCore

class Example(QtGui.QWidget):

    def __init__(self):
        super(Example, self).__init__()

        self.initUI()

    def initUI(self):      

        cb = QtGui.QCheckBox('Show title', self)
        cb.move(20, 20)
        cb.toggle()
        cb.stateChanged.connect(self.changeTitle)

        self.setGeometry(300, 300, 250, 150)
        self.setWindowTitle('QtGui.QCheckBox')
        self.show()

    def changeTitle(self, state):

        if state == QtCore.Qt.Checked:
            self.setWindowTitle('QtGui.QCheckBox')
        else:
            self.setWindowTitle('')

def main():

    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    ex = Example()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 1

QMainWindow is a class that understands GUI elements like a

• toolbar,
• statusbar,
• central widget,
• docking areas.

QWidget is just a raw widget.

When you want to have a main window for you project, use QMainWindow.

If you want to create a dialog box (modal dialog), use QWidget, or, more preferably, QDialog.