How to Build Web Browser using Python and PyQt5 2023 | Python Tutorial | Scroll Job Updates

Building a Simple Web Browser using Python and PyQt5

In this tutorial, we will learn how to create a simple web browser using Python and PyQt5. PyQt5 is a set of Python bindings for the Qt application framework and web engine. It allows us to create desktop applications with web-based interfaces.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have Python and PyQt5 installed on your system. You can install PyQt5 using pip:

pip install pyqt5

Creating the Simple Web Browser

To create a web browser using PyQt5, we will need to use the QWebEngineView widget. This widget provides a web engine that can load and display webpages.

First, let's create a simple application that displays a webpage:

import sys
from PyQt5.QtCore import QUrl
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication
from PyQt5.QtWebEngineWidgets import QWebEngineView

app = QApplication(sys.argv)
view = QWebEngineView()
view.load(QUrl("https://www.google.com"))
view.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

How To Run Python Code

To run Python code in Windows, you will need to have Python installed on your system. You can download the latest version of Python from the official Python website: https://www.python.org/downloads/

Once you have Python installed, you can run a Python script by opening a command prompt, navigating to the directory where the script is located, and then typing python script.py, where script.py is the name of your script.

Alternatively, you can also use an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) such as IDLE, PyCharm, or Visual Studio Code to write and run your Python code. These IDEs provide a more user-friendly interface for writing and debugging code, and often include additional features such as code completion and syntax highlighting.

Creating a fully-featured web browser using Python and PyQt5:

This code creates a web browser with a QWebEngineView widget for rendering web pages, a QLineEdit widget for entering URLs, and Go and Back buttons for navigating to different pages. It also uses QHBoxLayout and QVBoxLayout to arrange the widgets in a horizontal and vertical layout, respectively.

The Go button is connected to the goToUrl function, which gets the URL from the URL bar and uses it to navigate the webview to the specified page. The Back button is connected to the back function of the webview, which goes back to the previously visited page.

import sys
from PyQt5.QtCore import QUrl
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget, QVBoxLayout, QHBoxLayout, QLineEdit, QPushButton
from PyQt5.QtWebEngineWidgets import QWebEngineView

class Browser(QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.initUI()

    def initUI(self):
        self.setWindowTitle('Web Browser')

        # Create a QWebEngineView widget and set it as the central widget
        # of the window
        self.webview = QWebEngineView(self)
        self.webview.setUrl(QUrl("https://www.google.com"))

        # Create a QLineEdit widget for entering URLs
        self.url_bar = QLineEdit(self)
        self.url_bar.setText("https://www.google.com")

        # Create Go and Back buttons
        self.go_button = QPushButton("Go", self)
        self.back_button = QPushButton("Back", self)

        # Create layouts to arrange the widgets
        h_layout = QHBoxLayout()
        h_layout.addWidget(self.back_button)
        h_layout.addWidget(self.url_bar)
        h_layout.addWidget(self.go_button)

        v_layout = QVBoxLayout(self)
        v_layout.addLayout(h_layout)
        v_layout.addWidget(self.webview)

        # Set the layout of the window
        self.setLayout(v_layout)

        # Connect the Go button to the goToUrl function
        self.go_button.clicked.connect(self.goToUrl)

        # Connect the Back button to the back function
        self.back_button.clicked.connect(self.webview.back)

    def goToUrl(self):
        url = self.url_bar.text()
        self.webview.setUrl(QUrl(url))

app = QApplication(sys.argv)
browser = Browser()
browser.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

This is just one example of how you can create a web browser using Python and PyQt5, and you can add additional functionality as needed. For example, you can add a Forward button, a refresh button, or a menu bar with additional options.