PyQt on the Mac

Still working on this article... not sure how things will shake out yet. Come back tomorrow.

PyQt is a set of bindings for Python that allow you to build applications using the QT framework. So, in theory you can build one application that runs on any platform that supports Python and QT. This includes Macintosh, Linux, and Windows.

There is no Mac binary installer for PyQT.

I went down the path of installing the first copy of QT that I found at their site, then tried to build and install PyQT only to have it gripe that the QT installation was 32-bit.

Then I found that there are 64-bit versions of the QT binaries tucked away here.

But for some reason installing those did not help either.

Building QT 4.6.2 for 64-bit

./configure -arch X86_64
make
sudo make install

Building PyQT

First you have to build and install SIP. SIP is a tool for creating C/C++ bindings. Then you have to build and install PyQT.

For SIP:

export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.6
python configure.py -n -d /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages -b /usr/local/bin -e /usr/local/include -v /usr/local/share/sip --arch=x86_64 -s MacOSX10.6.sdk
make
sudo make install

For PyQt:

export QTDIR=/Developer/Applications/Qt
python configure.py -d /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages -b /usr/local/bin --use-arch=x86_64
make
sudo make install