15. Interface and application programming

Group Page

For this week's assignement I created a Virtual Environment and a User Interface with QtDesigner.

These are the steps that I followed to make it possible:

Downloaded and installed Python on my Windows computer.
Created a new folder for this week's assignment.
Created a virtual environment inside the project folder using:
```
python -m venv venv
```
Activated the virtual environment from the terminal using:
```
venv\Scripts\activate
```
Installed the libraries needed for the interface:
```
pip install PyQt6 
```
```
pip install pyserial
```
Checked the installed libraries using:
```
pip freeze
```
Documented the required libraries in a requirements file:
```
pip freeze > requirements.txt
```
Opened Visual Studio Code to work on the project files.
Downloaded and installed Qt Designer to create the interface visually.
In Qt Designer, I selected Main Window and created a new interface.

I selected and inserted the widgets needed for my interface.

I previewed the interface using Ctrl + R.

I saved the interface file inside my virtual environment folder as a .ui file.
I transformed the interface file into a Python file using:
```
pyuic6 -x interface.ui -o frontend.py
```

I executed the interface from the terminal using:
```
python frontend.py
```

I renamed the objects in Qt Designer to make the code easier to understand and connect.

I saved the updated interface again.
I transformed the updated .ui file again with pyuic6 so the Python file included the latest changes.

I created the functions to connect the objects and generate actions, placing them after def retranslateUi(self, MainWindow):.

I tested the interface with the terminal's preview.

I corrected the croped text lable and tested again.

Find the final python code here.

Some useful resources can be found here: https://github.com/Mozta/interfaces-fab-academy

Microcontroler connection

Once the interface was working on its own, I took the next step and added a connection to my previous weeks' circuit so that the LEDs turned on when the button "register" of the interface was pressed.

To do that, I uploaded this code to my circuit with Arduino IDE, made some changes to the python code and here is the result: