pyQt

Because I’m playing with Lazarus again, I wanted a taste (not a deep dive right now) of the Python way …PyQt and the Qt Designer.

So I’m following the Tech with Tim, PyQt tutorial and he actually starts using the designer in the 3d video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vde5SH8e1OQ&list=PLzMcBGfZo4-lB8MZfHPLTEHO9zJDDLpYj&index=1

pip install pyqt5
pip install pyqt5-tools

The 3rd video in the series tells you how to do the following. But the first 2 are good background info.

Create a link to QTdesigner in my working directory. It was installed when I did the pip install..
ln -s /home/bill/MyStuff/Python3/QT5/Tim/env/lib/python3.10/site-packages/qt5_applications/Qt/bin/designer designer

So this will give you an idea of the designer.

Pretty cool. Looks very Visual Basic or Delphi like.

Took a minute but I finally found pyuic5 in “env/bin/”, which is needed to convert the .ui file into Python code.

The second video shows you how to respond to an event. But he doesn’t actually respond to the event after the 3rd video, which would have been nice!

I think this may not be as in depth, but in 8 min, you use the designer AND modify the generated Python program to respond to a button click. It’s very simple and just prints to the console, but I like simple when learning a concept.

Calendar Creator on Windows

At this point, I’ve found nothing on Linux to create personalized printable calendars as nice as Calendar Creator. This very old program is Version 4. It also appears it was created for Windows 3.1 & Windows 95. That’s pretty darn old.

Interesting tidbit… I learned that Softkey became defunct in 1999, and it’s founder was SharkTanks Kevin O’Leary.

I believe it’s now Version 12.2 from BRODERBUND.

I also found on archive.org… Calendar Creator Version 8.0 Broderbund 2001

Anywho, this was a little tricky to figure out, but if it’s past January and you print a year calendar the heading will start at that month through the next year. So after playing with it, I found the below settings to print starting at January with only the Year, at the top.

I saw a review on Amazon that sounds similar to me.

“When I began to upgrade my computers from WinXP to Win7, I realized that CalendarCreator would no run on the newer OS, so I actually left 1 computer running WinXP, and it’s only job was to run CC and generate a daily multi-week calendar, which I use as my desktop background image on all my other computers! Over the years, I’ve looked around for a suitable replacement program, but there simply was nothing on the market that did the things I wanted *and* was a robust as CC! So I continued running the extra WinXP computer year after year.”

For Windows 2000, it’s back to VirtualBox

I Installed Windows 2000 SP4 using virt-manager and still had video problems. In googling it seems possible using QEMU on the command line with about 3 lines of switches. If it was possible with virt-manager… I couldn’t find it. You know I just want to print out some calendars. I’m more interested in doing a task than learning about all these switches. Then I remembered I saved the VirtualBox Windows 2000 image, it was a tar.gz with a 2017 date. So I copied it to disk. Reinstalled VirtualBox, and tried to open it. That’s when VirtualBox tells me “Please disable the KVM kernel extension, recompile your kernel and reboot” Really? I googled a little and it seems like it doesn’t work if you used QEMU/KVM (which I did) in this startup. All I had to do was reboot. And it worked. After getting my Win 2000 password from my password manager. I logged in, the screen resolution was fine, the color depth was fine. See below (running fullscreen), looks just like it’s running natively. And the programs I used back then were already installed. So that was a pretty stupid message VirtualBox gave me.

The sad part is how much my mom loved this calendar that listed significant family birthdays and anniversaries. I’d send her the PDF and she’d print it out and put it on her refrigerator. And now I have to add my beloved mom as deceased. She was a great mom, and I miss her.

Windows 2000 Professional SP4

I realized and found another Windows 2000 Professional, but with SP4. Remembering back this was probably the last major update to Windows 2000 Professional. They say… “Important: Due to enhancements in the IDE driver, you usually will want to install from SP4 media”. So I need to delete the other and reinstall.

HP…what a shitty company

I really don’t like to use foul language, but this company from whom I bought at least 3 different printers including a laser, is just the worst. I just heard Steve Gibson from Security Now, say that HP is bricking a printer you bought from them if they determine you’re using 3rd party ink. I would never buy a printer from them again. I actually stopped buying ink for my current HP printer years ago, because of the sky high prices. It was around $120 for a black and color cartridge, a few years ago. I think I just recently talked about this.

Windows 2000 Professional

Couldn’t find my Windows 2000 CD or DVD. Finally found the box, but no DVD inside. Thought because it’s so old, it may be on the Internet. I found an ISO on archive.org. Want to install it with virt-manager, mostly so I can use my old Calendar Creator program. It made the nicest calendars. My mom loved when I’d send her the Yearly PDF, that she could print. I also did MS-Access programming for a local business. And I had many of my own Access programs.

OK, 1st attempt (installed with virt-manager), don’t like screen resolution (640×480) or color depth (16 colors)…