Dialog creation: Difference between revisions

From FreeCAD Documentation
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<!--T:69-->
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{{docnav
{{Docnav
|[[Interface_creation|Interface creation]]
|[[Line drawing function|Line drawing function]]
|[[Licence|Licence]]
|[[Licence|Licence]]
}}
}}

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{{TOCright}}
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== Introduction == <!--T:87-->


<!--T:1-->
<!--T:1-->
In this page we will show how to build a simple Qt Dialog with [http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/designer-manual.html Qt Designer], Qt's official tool for designing interfaces, then convert it to python code, then use it inside FreeCAD. I'll assume in the example that you know how to edit and run python scripts already, and that you can do simple things in a terminal window such as navigate, etc. You must also have, of course, pyqt installed.
In this page we will show how to build a simple graphical interface with [http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/designer-manual.html Qt Designer], Qt's official tool for designing interfaces; the dialog will be converted to [[Python|Python]] code, then it will be used inside FreeCAD. We'll assume that the user knows how to edit and run [[Python|Python]] generally.

<!--T:88-->
In this example, the entire interface is defined in [[Python|Python]]. Although this is possible for small interfaces, for larger interfaces the recommendation is to load the created {{FileName|.ui}} files directly into the program.

<!--T:89-->
[[File:FreeCAD_creating_interfaces.svg|600px]]
{{Caption|Two general methods to create interfaces, by including the interface in the Python file, or by using {{incode|.ui}} files.}}


== Designing the dialog == <!--T:2-->
== Designing the dialog == <!--T:2-->

<!--T:90-->
In CAD applications, designing a good UI (User Interface) is very important. About everything the user will do will be through some piece of interface: reading dialog boxes, pressing buttons, choosing between icons, etc. So it is very important to think carefully to what you want to do, how you want the user to behave, and how will be the workflow of your action.
In CAD applications, designing a good UI (User Interface) is very important. About everything the user will do will be through some piece of interface: reading dialog boxes, pressing buttons, choosing between icons, etc. So it is very important to think carefully to what you want to do, how you want the user to behave, and how will be the workflow of your action.


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{{Code|code=
{{Code|code=
compQt4 myUiFile
compQt4 myUiFile
}}

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<!--T:93-->
In macOS, you can retrieve the appropriate version (the same that is used internally in FreeCAD 0.19) of QT and Pyside with these commands (pip required)
</translate>
{{Code|code=
python3 -m pip install pyqt5
python3 -m pip install pySide2
}}
<translate>
<!--T:94-->
This will install uic in the folder "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PySide2/uic", and Designer in "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PySide2/Designer.app".
For convenience you can create a link of uic in /usr/local/bin to be able to call it simply with uic -g python ... instead of typing the whole path of the program, and a link to Designer to retrieve it in the mac's Applications folder with
</translate>
{{Code|code=
sudo ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PySide2/uic /usr/local/bin
ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PySide2/Designer.app /Applications
}}
}}


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}}
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==Creation of a dialog with buttons== <!--T:27-->


==More examples == <!--T:27-->
See [[Dialog_creation_with_Python_pt2|Dialog creation with Python pt. 2]].


<!--T:91-->
==Personalized icon in the combo view== <!--T:64-->
* [[Dialog_creation_with_various_widgets|Dialog creation with various widgets]] with {{incode|QPushButton}}, {{incode|QLineEdit}}, {{incode|QCheckBox}}, {{incode|QRadioButton}}, and others.

* [[Dialog_creation_reading_and_writing_files|Dialog creation reading and writing files]] with {{incode|QFileDialog}}.
See [[Custom_icon_in_tree_view|Custom icon in tree view]].
* [[Dialog_creation_setting_colors|Dialog creation setting colors]] with {{incode|QColorDialog}}.

* [[Dialog_creation_image_and_animated_GIF|Dialog creation image and animated GIF]] with {{incode|QLabel}} and {{incode|QMovie}}.
==Dialog for reading and writing to a file== <!--T:61-->
* [[PySide_usage_snippets|PySide usage snippets]].

* [[Qt_Example|Qt Example]]
See [[Dialog_creation_reading_and_writing_files|Dialog creation reading and writing files]].

==Creation of a dialog to pick colors== <!--T:63-->

See [[Dialog_creation_setting_colors|Dialog creation setting colors]].

==Display Image with QLabel and Gif animated with QMovie== <!--T:80-->
</translate>

{{Code|code=
import PySide
from PySide import QtGui ,QtCore
from PySide.QtGui import QPixmap, QMovie, QLabel
from PySide.QtCore import *
class MyLabelPatience():
label = QtGui.QLabel()
label.setText("<img src=" + path_Name_Image + "><b><center>Wait please</center> \n\n<center>i search the fonts !\n\n</center></b>")
# center screen
ecran = FreeCADGui.getMainWindow().frameGeometry()
xF = 250; yF = 120
xW = (ecran.width()/2) - (xF/2)
yW = (ecran.height()/2)- (yF/2)
label.setGeometry(xW, yW, xF, yF)
####
label.setStyleSheet("QLabel {background-color : #F0C300;font: 12pt; }");
label.setWindowFlags(Qt.WindowFlags(Qt.FramelessWindowHint)) # pas de bords (not border)
### un-comment for use ###############
movie = QtGui.QMovie(path_Name_Image) # anime le fichier Gif anime (decommenter)
label.setMovie(movie)
movie.start()
##################

patience = MyLabelPatience().label
patience.show() #show the image
#patience.close() #close the Qlabel
#MyLabelPatience().movie.start() #start the animation (after patience.show())
#MyLabelPatience().movie.stop() #stop animation

}}

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<!--T:81-->
* Example QLabel with image and text
</translate>

{{clear}}
[[File:Qlabel Image00.png|left|Example QLabel with image]]
{{clear}}

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<!--T:82-->
* Example QLabel with image animated Gif
</translate>

{{clear}}
[[File:Qlabel Image Animee00.gif|left|Example animated Gif]]
{{clear}}
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==Some useful commands== <!--T:39-->
</translate>

{{Code|code=
# Here the code to display the icon on the '''pushButton''',
# change the name to another button, ('''radioButton, checkBox''') as well as the path to the icon,

# Displays an icon on the button PushButton
# self.image_01 = "C:\Program Files\FreeCAD0.13\icone01.png" # he name of the icon
self.image_01 = path+"icone01.png" # the name of the icon
icon01 = QtGui.QIcon()
icon01.addPixmap(QtGui.QPixmap(self.image_01),QtGui.QIcon.Normal, QtGui.QIcon.Off)
self.pushButton.setIcon(icon01)
self.pushButton.setLayoutDirection(QtCore.Qt.RightToLeft) # This command reverses the direction of the button


# path = FreeCAD.ConfigGet("UserAppData") # gives the user path
path = FreeCAD.ConfigGet("AppHomePath") # gives the installation path of FreeCAD

# This command reverses the horizontal button, right to left
self.pushButton.setLayoutDirection(QtCore.Qt.RightToLeft) # This command reverses the horizontal button

# Displays an info button
self.pushButton.setToolTip(_translate("MainWindow", "Quitter la fonction", None)) # Displays an info button

# This function gives a color button
self.pushButton.setStyleSheet("background-color: red") # This function gives a color button

# This function gives a color to the text of the button
self.pushButton.setStyleSheet("color : #ff0000") # This function gives a color to the text of the button

# combinaison des deux, bouton et texte
self.pushButton.setStyleSheet("color : #ff0000; background-color : #0000ff;" ) # combination of the two, button, and text

# replace the icon in the main window
MainWindow.setWindowIcon(QtGui.QIcon('C:\Program Files\FreeCAD0.13\View-C3P.png'))

# connects a lineEdit on execute
self.lineEdit.returnPressed.connect(self.execute) # connects a lineEdit on "def execute" after validation on enter
# self.lineEdit.textChanged.connect(self.execute) # connects a lineEdit on "def execute" with each keystroke on the keyboard

# display text in a lineEdit
self.lineEdit.setText(str(val_X)) # Displays the value in the lineEdit (convert to string)

# extract the string contained in a lineEdit
val_X = self.lineEdit.text() # extract the (string) string contained in lineEdit
val_X = float(val_X0) # converted the string to an floating
val_X = int(val_X0) # convert the string to an integer

# This code allows you to change the font and its attributes
font = QtGui.QFont()
font.setFamily("Times New Roman")
font.setPointSize(10)
font.setWeight(10)
font.setBold(True) # same result with tags "<b>your text</b>" (in quotes)
self.label_6.setFont(font)
self.label_6.setObjectName("label_6")
self.label_6.setStyleSheet("color : #ff0000") # This function gives a color to the text
self.label_6.setText(_translate("MainWindow", "Select a view", None))
}}
<translate>

<!--T:40-->
By using the characters with accents, where you get the error :
</translate>

<FONT COLOR="#FF0000">'''UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode bytes in position 0-2: invalid data'''</FONT>

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<!--T:41-->
Several solutions are possible.
</translate>
{{Code|code=
# conversion from a lineEdit
App.activeDocument().CopyRight.Text = str(unicode(self.lineEdit_20.text() , 'ISO-8859-1').encode('UTF-8'))
DESIGNED_BY = unicode(self.lineEdit_01.text(), 'ISO-8859-1').encode('UTF-8')
}}
<translate>
<!--T:43-->
or with the procedure
</translate>
{{Code|code=
def utf8(unio):
return unicode(unio).encode('UTF8')
}}

<FONT COLOR="#FF0000">'''UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xe9' in position 9: ordinal not in range(128)'''</FONT>

{{Code|code=
# conversion
a = u"Nom de l'élément : "
f.write('''a.encode('iso-8859-1')'''+str(element_)+"\n")
}}
<translate>
<!--T:44-->
or with the procedure
</translate>
{{Code|code=
def iso8859(encoder):
return unicode(encoder).encode('iso-8859-1')
}}
<translate>
<!--T:45-->
or
</translate>
{{Code|code=
iso8859(unichr(176))
}}
<translate>
<!--T:46-->
or
</translate>
{{Code|code=
unichr(ord(176))
}}
<translate>
<!--T:47-->
or
</translate>
{{Code|code=
uniteSs = "mm"+iso8859(unichr(178))
print(unicode(uniteSs, 'iso8859'))
}}
<translate>


== Relevant links == <!--T:83-->
== Relevant links == <!--T:83-->


<!--T:92-->
* [[Manual:Creating interface tools]]
* [[Manual:Creating interface tools]]

* [[Dialog_creation_with_UI_files|Dialog creation with UI files]]


<!--T:48-->
<!--T:48-->
{{docnav
{{Docnav
|[[Interface_creation|Interface creation]]
|[[Line drawing function|Line drawing function]]
|[[Licence|Licence]]
|[[Licence|Licence]]
}}
}}
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[[Category:Developer Documentation{{#translation:}}]]
[[Category:Developer Documentation{{#translation:}}]]
[[Category:Python Code{{#translation:}}]]
[[Category:Python Code{{#translation:}}]]

{{clear}}

Latest revision as of 15:39, 6 November 2021

Introduction

In this page we will show how to build a simple graphical interface with Qt Designer, Qt's official tool for designing interfaces; the dialog will be converted to Python code, then it will be used inside FreeCAD. We'll assume that the user knows how to edit and run Python generally.

In this example, the entire interface is defined in Python. Although this is possible for small interfaces, for larger interfaces the recommendation is to load the created .ui files directly into the program.

Two general methods to create interfaces, by including the interface in the Python file, or by using .ui files.

Designing the dialog

In CAD applications, designing a good UI (User Interface) is very important. About everything the user will do will be through some piece of interface: reading dialog boxes, pressing buttons, choosing between icons, etc. So it is very important to think carefully to what you want to do, how you want the user to behave, and how will be the workflow of your action.

There are a couple of concepts to know when designing interface:

  • Modal/non-modal dialogs: A modal dialog appears in front of your screen, stopping the action of the main window, forcing the user to respond to the dialog, while a non-modal dialog doesn't stop you from working on the main window. In some case the first is better, in other cases not.
  • Identifying what is required and what is optional: Make sure the user knows what he must do. Label everything with proper description, use tooltips, etc.
  • Separating commands from parameters: This is usually done with buttons and text input fields. The user knows that clicking a button will produce an action while changing a value inside a text field will change a parameter somewhere. Nowadays, though, users usually know well what is a button, what is an input field, etc. The interface toolkit we are using, Qt, is a state-of-the-art toolkit, and we won't have to worry much about making things clear, since they will already be very clear by themselves.

So, now that we have well defined what we will do, it's time to open the qt designer. Let's design a very simple dialog, like this:

We will then use this dialog in FreeCAD to produce a nice rectangular plane. You might find it not very useful to produce nice rectangular planes, but it will be easy to change it later to do more complex things. When you open it, Qt Designer looks like this:

Creating the dialog

Qt Designer is very simple to use. On the left bar you have elements that can be dragged on your widget. On the right side you have properties panels displaying all kinds of editable properties of selected elements. So, begin with creating a new widget.

  1. Select "Dialog without buttons", since we don't want the default OK/Cancel buttons.
  2. We need 'Labels. Labels are simple text strings that appear on your widget to inform the end user. If you select a label, notice that on the right side there will appear several properties that you can modify such as: font style, height, etc... So lets drag 3 separate labels on to our widget:
    • One label for the title
    • Another label for writing "Height"
    • Another label for writing "Width"
  3. We now need LineEdits (2 of them actually). Drag two of them on to the widget. LineEdits are text fields that the end user can fill in. So we need one LineEdit for the Height and one for the Width. Here too, we can edit properties. For example, why not set a default value say for example: 1.00 for each. This way, when the user will see the dialog, both values will be filled already. If the end user is satisfied, they can directly press the button, saving precious time.
  4. Next lets add a PushButton. This is the button the end user will need to press after they've filled both fields.

Note: that we chose very simple controls here. Qt has many more options, for example one could use Spinboxes instead of LineEdits, etc... Have a look at what is available, explore...you will surely have other ideas.

That's about all we need to do in Qt Designer. One last thing, though, let's rename all our elements with simpler names, so it will be easier to identify them in our scripts:

Converting our dialog to python

Now, let's save our widget somewhere. It will be saved as an .ui file, that we will easily convert to python script with pyuic. On windows, the pyuic program is bundled with pyqt (to be verified), on linux you probably will need to install it separately from your package manager (on debian-based systems, it is part of the pyqt4-dev-tools package). To do the conversion, you'll need to open a terminal window (or a command prompt window on windows), navigate to where you saved your .ui file, and issue:

pyuic mywidget.ui > mywidget.py

In Windows pyuic.py is located in "C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\PyQt4\uic\pyuic.py" For conversion create a batch file called "compQt4.bat:

@"C:\Python27\python" "C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\PyQt4\uic\pyuic.py" -x %1.ui > %1.py

In the DOS console type without extension

compQt4 myUiFile

In macOS, you can retrieve the appropriate version (the same that is used internally in FreeCAD 0.19) of QT and Pyside with these commands (pip required)

python3 -m pip install pyqt5
python3 -m pip install pySide2

This will install uic in the folder "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PySide2/uic", and Designer in "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PySide2/Designer.app". For convenience you can create a link of uic in /usr/local/bin to be able to call it simply with uic -g python ... instead of typing the whole path of the program, and a link to Designer to retrieve it in the mac's Applications folder with

sudo ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PySide2/uic /usr/local/bin
ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages/PySide2/Designer.app /Applications

Into Linux : to do

Since FreeCAD progressively moved away from PyQt after version 0.13, in favour of PySide (Choose your PySide install building PySide), to make the file based on PySide now you have to use:

pyside-uic mywidget.ui -o mywidget.py

In Windows uic.py are located in "C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\PySide\scripts\uic.py" For create batch file "compSide.bat":

@"C:\Python27\python" "C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\PySide\scripts\uic.py" %1.ui > %1.py

In the DOS console type without extension

compSide myUiFile

Into Linux : to do

On some systems the program is called pyuic4 instead of pyuic. This will simply convert the .ui file into a python script. If we open the mywidget.py file, its contents is very easy to understand:

from PySide import QtCore, QtGui

class Ui_Dialog(object):
    def setupUi(self, Dialog):
        Dialog.setObjectName("Dialog")
        Dialog.resize(187, 178)
        self.title = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
        self.title.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(10, 10, 271, 16))
        self.title.setObjectName("title")
        self.label_width = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
        ...

        self.retranslateUi(Dialog)
        QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(Dialog)

   def retranslateUi(self, Dialog):
        Dialog.setWindowTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Dialog", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
        self.title.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("Dialog", "Plane-O-Matic", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
        ...

As you see it has a very simple structure: a class named Ui_Dialog is created, that stores the interface elements of our widget. That class has two methods, one for setting up the widget, and one for translating its contents, which is part of the general Qt mechanism for translating interface elements. The setup method simply creates, one by one, the widgets as we defined them in Qt Designer, and sets their options as we decided earlier. Then, the whole interface gets translated, and finally, the slots get connected (we'll talk about that later).

We can now create a new widget and use this class to create its interface. We can already see our widget in action, by putting our mywidget.py file in a place where FreeCAD will find it (in the FreeCAD bin directory, or in any of the Mod subdirectories), and, in the FreeCAD python interpreter, issue:

from PySide import QtGui
import mywidget
d = QtGui.QWidget()
d.ui = mywidget.Ui_Dialog()
d.ui.setupUi(d)
d.show()

And our dialog will appear! Note that our Python interpreter is still working, we have a non-modal dialog. So, to close it, we can (apart from clicking its close icon, of course) issue:

d.hide()

Making our dialog do something

Now that we can show and hide our dialog, we just need to add one last part: To make it do something! If you play a bit with Qt designer, you'll quickly discover a whole section called "signals and slots". Basically, it works like this: elements on your widgets (in Qt terminology, those elements are themselves widgets) can send signals. Those signals differ according to the widget type. For example, a button can send a signal when it is pressed and when it is released. Those signals can be connected to slots, which can be special functionality of other widgets (for example a dialog has a "close" slot to which you can connect the signal from a close button), or can be custom functions. The PyQt Reference Documentation lists all the qt widgets, what they can do, what signals they can send, etc...

What we will do here, is to create a new function that will create a plane based on height and width, and to connect that function to the pressed signal emitted by our "Create!" button. So, let's begin with importing our FreeCAD modules, by putting the following line at the top of the script, where we already import QtCore and QtGui:

import FreeCAD, Part

Then, let's add a new function to our Ui_Dialog class:

def createPlane(self):
    try:
        # first we check if valid numbers have been entered
        w = float(self.width.text())
        h = float(self.height.text())
    except ValueError:
        print("Error! Width and Height values must be valid numbers!")
    else:
        # create a face from 4 points
        p1 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,0,0)
        p2 = FreeCAD.Vector(w,0,0)
        p3 = FreeCAD.Vector(w,h,0)
        p4 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,h,0)
        pointslist = [p1,p2,p3,p4,p1]
        mywire = Part.makePolygon(pointslist)
        myface = Part.Face(mywire)
        Part.show(myface)
        self.hide()

Then, we need to inform Qt to connect the button to the function, by placing the following line just before QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(Dialog):

QtCore.QObject.connect(self.create,QtCore.SIGNAL("pressed()"),self.createPlane)

This, as you see, connects the pressed() signal of our create object (the "Create!" button), to a slot named createPlane, which we just defined. That's it! Now, as a final touch, we can add a little function to create the dialog, it will be easier to call. Outside the Ui_Dialog class, let's add this code:

class plane():
   def __init__(self):
       self.d = QtGui.QWidget()
       self.ui = Ui_Dialog()
       self.ui.setupUi(self.d)
       self.d.show()

(Python reminder: the __init__ method of a class is automatically executed whenever a new object is created!) Then, from FreeCAD, we only need to do:

import mywidget
myDialog = mywidget.plane()

That's all Folks... Now you can try all kinds of things, like for example inserting your widget in the FreeCAD interface (see the Code snippets page), or making much more advanced custom tools, by using other elements on your widget.

The complete script

This is the complete script, for reference:

# Form implementation generated from reading ui file 'mywidget.ui'
#
# Created: Mon Jun  1 19:09:10 2009
#      by: PyQt4 UI code generator 4.4.4
# Modified for PySide 16:02:2015 
# WARNING! All changes made in this file will be lost!

from PySide import QtCore, QtGui
import FreeCAD, Part 

class Ui_Dialog(object):
   def setupUi(self, Dialog):
       Dialog.setObjectName("Dialog")
       Dialog.resize(187, 178)
       self.title = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
       self.title.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(10, 10, 271, 16))
       self.title.setObjectName("title")
       self.label_width = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
       self.label_width.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(10, 50, 57, 16))
       self.label_width.setObjectName("label_width")
       self.label_height = QtGui.QLabel(Dialog)
       self.label_height.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(10, 90, 57, 16))
       self.label_height.setObjectName("label_height")
       self.width = QtGui.QLineEdit(Dialog)
       self.width.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(60, 40, 111, 26))
       self.width.setObjectName("width")
       self.height = QtGui.QLineEdit(Dialog)
       self.height.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(60, 80, 111, 26))
       self.height.setObjectName("height")
       self.create = QtGui.QPushButton(Dialog)
       self.create.setGeometry(QtCore.QRect(50, 140, 83, 26))
       self.create.setObjectName("create")

       self.retranslateUi(Dialog)
       QtCore.QObject.connect(self.create,QtCore.SIGNAL("pressed()"),self.createPlane)
       QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(Dialog)

   def retranslateUi(self, Dialog):
       Dialog.setWindowTitle("Dialog")
       self.title.setText("Plane-O-Matic")
       self.label_width.setText("Width")
       self.label_height.setText("Height")
       self.create.setText("Create!")
       print("tyty")
   def createPlane(self):
       try:
           # first we check if valid numbers have been entered
           w = float(self.width.text())
           h = float(self.height.text())
       except ValueError:
           print("Error! Width and Height values must be valid numbers!")
       else:
           # create a face from 4 points
           p1 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,0,0)
           p2 = FreeCAD.Vector(w,0,0)
           p3 = FreeCAD.Vector(w,h,0)
           p4 = FreeCAD.Vector(0,h,0)
           pointslist = [p1,p2,p3,p4,p1]
           mywire = Part.makePolygon(pointslist)
           myface = Part.Face(mywire)
           Part.show(myface)

class plane():
  def __init__(self):
      self.d = QtGui.QWidget()
      self.ui = Ui_Dialog()
      self.ui.setupUi(self.d)
      self.d.show()

More examples

Relevant links