Advanced usage

Document

A View displays Page objects, which optionally can belong to a Document object.

The convenience methods View.loadPdf(), View.loadImages() and View.loadSvgs(), create Document objects containing the pages, and then call View.setDocument() to display the pages in the view.

You can also use the module global functions like loadPdf() which return a Document, and then load that Document in the View:

v = qpageview.View()
v.show()

doc = qpageview.loadPdf("file.pdf")
v.setDocument(doc)

This way you can keep a document in memory, and you can load it, then load something else in the view and later load the same document again, without the need to load it again from disk or network.

When creating a Document using one of the global load functions, nothing is really loaded until you request the pages() of the Document, and even then, some Page types only load themselves really when their content is requested to be rendered in the View.

The list of individual Page objects in a document is returned by the pages() method of the Document class.

The current Page object (the current page number points to) is available through View.currentPage().

Page and PageLayout

The View does not do very much with the Document it displays, rather it cares for the Page objects that are displayed.

The pages are in the PageLayout of the View, which inherits from the Python list type. Get the PageLayout of a View using View.pageLayout(). Using the regular list methods you can add or remove Page objects to the layout. Then you need to call View.updatePageLayout() to update the PageLayout, which will adjust size and position of the Pages.

Instead of the above, and maybe even better and easier, you can use the modifyPages() context manager of View, which will automatically update the layout when it exits:

with v.modifyPages() as pages:
    del pages[0]                # remove the first page
    pages.append(another_page)  # append another

This context manager yields the pages list, and when it exits it puts the pages in the layout, and updates the page layout. Note that in the layout, and in this pages list, the first page is at index 0.

This way, it is very easy to display Page objects originating from different sources:

import qpageview.image
page1 = qpageview.image.ImagePage.load("image.jpg")
page2 = qpageview.loadPdf("file.pdf").pages()[2]

with v.modifyPages() as pages:
    pages[:] = [page1, page2]       # [:] replaces the current contents

Controlling a view with ViewActions

Normally, in a Qt application, you create QActions to perform tasks and put those in a menu or toolbar. The qpageview package provides the viewactions module to help you with that.

If you create a ViewActions object and connect it to a View, all actions can readily be used to control the View, and they automatically update their state according to the View’s state. The actions (QAction objects) are in the attributes of the ViewActions object.

For example, to add some actions to a menu:

import qpageview.viewactions
a = qpageview.viewactions.ViewActions()

a.setView(v)

menu = Qmenu()
menu.addAction(a.fit_width)
menu.addAction(a.fit_height)
menu.addAction(a.fit_both)
menu.addSeparator()
menu.addAction(a.zoom_in)
menu.addAction(a.zoom_out)

menu.popup(QCursor.pos())

The pager action fits well in a toolbar, it displays a spinbox where you can cycle through the pages, and the zoomer action displays a combobox with different zoom levels.

The full list of available action names is returned by the names() classmethod. You can set icons to the actions as you like, and replace the texts. It is also easy to inherit from ViewActions and add actions or change existing actions.

This is the list of actions that are currently available in a ViewActions object:

Name	Text	Action
print	Print	Open a print dialog
fit_width	Fit Width	Zoom to fit pages in the width of the View
fit_height	Fit Height	Zoom to fit pages in the height of the View
fit_both	Fit Both	Zoom to fit the full page in the View
zoom_natural	Natural Size	Zoom to a “natural” size (Page dpi/screen dpi)
zoom_original	Original Size	Set zoom factor to 1.0
zoom_in	Zoom in
zoom_out	Zoom out
zoomer	(none)	Display a zoom widget in a toolbar
rotate_left	Rotate Left	Rotate the pages 90° counter-clockwise
rotate_right	Rotate Right	Rotate the pages 90° clockwise
layout_single	Single Pages	Show single pages in a row
layout_double_right	Two Pages (first page right)	Show page 1 alone, to the right, then the rest two by two
layout_double_left	Two Pages (first page left)	Show pages two by two
layout_raster	Raster	Show pages in a grid
vertical	Vertical	Show the pages in a vertical row
horizontal	Horizontal	Show the pages in a horizontal row
continuous	Continuous	Checkbox, if checked shows all pages
reload	Reload	Reload pages from their files if possible
previous_page	Previous Page	Go to the previous page
next_page	Next Page	Go to the next page
pager	(none)	Display a pager widget in a toolbar
magnifier	Magnifier	Toggle the Magnifier visibility

Lazy View instantiation

It is possible to create a ViewActions object first and populate menus and toolbars with the actions, while the View is not yet created (e.g. when the View is in a dock widget that’s only created when first shown). In this case, you want to instantiate the dock widget and View as soon as an action is triggered. To do this, connect to the viewRequested() signal of the ViewActions object. The connected method must create widgets as needed and then call setView() on the ViewActions object, so the action can be performed.

Managing View settings

All display settings (preferences) of a View can be stored in a QSettings object using View.writeProperties(), and read with View.readProperties(). These properties are: position, rotation, zoomFactor, viewMode, orientation, continuousMode and pageLayoutMode.

Under the hood, this is done using a ViewProperties object, which handles the saving and loading of properties, and getting/setting them from/to a View.

If you want the View to remember the position, zoom factor etc. on a per-document basis, you can install a DocumentPropertyStore in the View. This automatically stores the view properties for the current Document as soon as you load a different Document (using View.setDocument()). If you switch back to the former document, the View restores its position and other display settings for that document.

To use a DocumentPropertyStore:

v = qpageview.View()
store = qpageview.view.DocumentPropertyStore()
v.documentPropertyStore = store

By setting a mask it is possible to influence which properties are remembered. In this example, only zoom factor and position are remembered when switching documents:

store.mask = ['position', 'zoomFactor']

Lazy View instantiation: It is also possible to initialize the ViewActions from your settings, even if you have not yet created a View (for example, when the View is in a not yet created dock widget that is lazily instantiated). This way, you application’s user interface already reflects the correct settings for the yet-not-created view. Use the View.properties() static method to get an uninitialized ViewProperties object, set some defaults and then add settings read from a QSettings object. Finally update the state of the actions in the ViewActions object, before connecting to the ViewActions.viewRequested signal.

All methods of ViewProperties return self, so these calls can be easily chained:

settings = QSettings()
props = qpageview.View.properties().setdefaults().load(settings)
actions = qpageview.viewactions.ViewActions()
actions.updateFromProperties(props)
actions.viewRequested.connect(createView)

Later, when you really instantiate the View, you should also load the View settings; the ViewActions object does not actively update the View when connecting (rather, the actions are adjusted to the View when connecting):

def createView():
    # creating the View....
    v = qpageview.View()
    settings = QSettings()
    v.readProperties(settings)
    actions.setView(v)

Using View Mixins

The View as defined in the qpageview module is a class composed of the basic View class in view.View and some View Mixin classes that extend the functionality of the basic View.

This is a list of the currently available View Mixin classes:

link.LinkViewMixin

Adds functionality to click on links, e.g. in PDF pages

highlight.HighlightViewMixin

Adds functionality to highlight rectangular regions

shadow.ShadowViewMixin

Draws a nice shadow border around the pages

util.LongMousePressMixin

Handles long mouse presses (can be mixed in with any QWidget)

imageview.ImageViewMixin

A View targeted to the display of one single image (see also the ImageView)

selector.SelectorViewMixin

Adds functionality to make pages selectable with a checkbox

widgetoverlay.WidgetOverlayViewMixin

Adds functionality to display QWidgets on Pages that scroll and optionally zoom along and the user can interact with

So, depending on your needs, you can create your own View subclass, mixing in only the functionality you need. Put the main View class at the end, for example:

class View(
    qpageview.link.LinkViewMixin,
    # other mixins here
    qpageview.view.View):
    """My View with some enhancements."""
    pass

    # my own extensions and new funcionality
    def myMethod(self):
        pass

Specialized View subclasses

There are already some specialized View subclasses available, those are:

ImageView

A View that is tailored to show one image (from file, data or a QImage)

SidebarView

A View that shows selectable thumbnails of all pages in a connected View, usable as a sidebar for a normal View.