Build a menubar macos App using PyQt5 and PyInstaller

Posted by chunyang on June 28, 2022
TAGS: #python #pyqt

PyQt is a python package that can be used to develop GUI applications even complex applications. In this blog, we will develop a menubar note application and package it using pyinstaller.

Final application snapshot

Penguin note

PyQt code

from PyQt5.QtWidgets import (
    QApplication,
    QSystemTrayIcon,
    QMainWindow,
    QTextEdit,
    QMenu,
    QAction,
)
from PyQt5.QtGui import QIcon
from PyQt5 import QtCore
import sys
import os

app = QApplication(sys.argv)

# Close window without exiting the application
app.setQuitOnLastWindowClosed(False)

# Create the icon
path = os.path.dirname(__file__)
icon = QIcon(os.path.join(path, "animal-penguin.png"))
# Create the tray
tray = QSystemTrayIcon()
tray.setIcon(icon)

tray.setVisible(True)

menu = QMenu()
quit = QAction("Quit")
quit.triggered.connect(app.quit)


class MainWindow(QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        menu = self.menuBar()
        file_menu = menu.addMenu("&File")
        self.quit = QAction("&Quit")
        self.quit.triggered.connect(app.quit)
        file_menu.addAction(self.quit)
        self.editor = QTextEdit(self)
        self.load()  # Load up the text from file.

        self.setCentralWidget(self.editor)
        self.setWindowTitle("PenguinNotes")

    def load(self):
        if os.path.exists("notes.txt"):
            with open("notes.txt", "r") as f:
                text = f.read()
            self.editor.setPlainText(text)

    def save(self):
        text = self.editor.toPlainText()
        with open("notes.txt", "w") as f:
            f.write(text)

    def activate(self, reason):
        if reason == QSystemTrayIcon.Trigger:  # Icon clicked.
            self.show()

    def notes(self):
        self.show()
        self.setWindowState(QtCore.Qt.WindowState.WindowActive)
        self.raise_()

w = MainWindow()

notes_action = QAction("Notes")
menu.addAction(notes_action)
menu.addAction(quit)
notes_action.triggered.connect(w.notes)
tray.setContextMenu(menu)
# tray.activated.connect(w.activate)
app.aboutToQuit.connect(w.save)
app.setWindowIcon(QIcon("animal-penguin.png"))
app.exec()
  • Save the program as penguin-note.py
  • You can download any image and name it to animal-penguin.png in order to show the icon.
  • python penguin-note.py

Compile into a macos application

First, you have to install pyinstaller.

pip install pyinstaller --upgrade

pyinstaller --windowed penguin-note.py

By doing so, we will have two folders:

  • build
  • dist
  • penguin-note.spec:
    • Configuration file used to build our application

In the dist folder, there lies our app.

penguin-note-app

It has no icon on the menubar and a default icon in the dock.

We need to add the png file to the penguin-note.spec. Add to the Analysis part

datas=[("animal-penguin.png", ".")]

And then run:

pyinstaller penguin-note.spec --noconfirm

Bingo, now we have our icon in the menubar.

  • --noconfirm is used to ignore the warning of overriding the files in dist

Dock icon

Mac use icns file.

  • Use Preview to open the png
  • Duplicate
  • Save：press option, select the type icns

Sometimes you may fail to convert the png to icns, try to crop the image to size 512 by 512.

In the Bundle part, instead of icons=None, set to the icns file generated such as penguin.icns

app = BUNDLE(
    coll,
    name='penguin-note.app',
    icon="penguin.icns",
    bundle_identifier=None,
)

Hide the dock icon

In order to make it a pure menubar application, we need to hide the icon in dock. That can be achieved by modifying the Info.plist.

app = BUNDLE(
    coll,
    name='penguin-note.app',
    icon="penguin.icns",
    bundle_identifier=None,
    info_plist={
        'LSUIElement': True,
        'LSBackgroundOnly': True,
        'NSUIElement': True
    },
)

Where to go from here

You can use create-dmg to create a installed instead of an application which users can use it to install applications.

Reference