Using PySide

Autodesk 3ds Max ships with a pre-built version of PySide 1.2 compatible with Python 2.7.6. This version includes all standard PySide modules.

Example PySide Script

The following simple example shows how to obtain a handle for the PySide application object and create a widget:

'''
    Demonstrates how to create a QWidget with PySide and attach it to the 3dsmax main window.
''' 

from PySide import QtGui
import MaxPlus


class _GCProtector(object):
    widgets = []

def make_cylinder():
    obj = MaxPlus.Factory.CreateGeomObject(MaxPlus.ClassIds.Cylinder)
    obj.ParameterBlock.Radius.Value = 10.0
    obj.ParameterBlock.Height.Value = 30.0
    node = MaxPlus.Factory.CreateNode(obj)
    time = MaxPlus.Core.GetCurrentTime()
    MaxPlus.ViewportManager.RedrawViews(time)
    return

app = QtGui.QApplication.instance()
if not app:
    app = QtGui.QApplication([])
    
def main():     
    MaxPlus.FileManager.Reset(True)
    
    w = QtGui.QWidget(MaxPlus.GetQMaxWindow())
    _GCProtector.widgets.append( w )
    w.resize(250, 100)
    w.setWindowTitle('PySide Qt Window')

    main_layout = QtGui.QVBoxLayout()
    label = QtGui.QLabel("Click button to create a cylinder in the scene")
    main_layout.addWidget(label)

    cylinder_btn = QtGui.QPushButton("Cylinder")
    cylinder_btn.clicked.connect(make_cylinder)
    main_layout.addWidget(cylinder_btn)
    
    textEdit = QtGui.QLineEdit()
    textEdit.setText("Edit box")
    main_layout.addWidget(textEdit)
    
    w.setLayout( main_layout )
    w.show()

    
if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Notes:

Normally one creates a PySide application object in a script using QtGui.QApplication(). However, in 3ds Max, there is already a PySide application running, so you get a handle for that object like this:
```
QtGui.QApplication.instance()
```
To make 3ds Max the parent of our QWidget, we create a new QWidget and pass it the main window handle returned by MaxPlus.GetQMaxWindow(). To display the widget as modeless, call .show(), and to open it as modal, call .exec_().
To protect widgets from being garbage collected, you should keep references to them in a static class variable, such as the GCProtector.widgets array in the example script.
Nodes created within a script may not appear in Max until the script exits, unless you force a viewport update. You can do so with MaxPlus.ViewportManager.ForceCompleteRedraw() or MaxPlus.ViewportManager.RedrawViews().

Loading Qt UI Files

MaxPlus provides a facility for loading UI files created by Qt Designer: MaxPlus.LoadUiType(). For example:

import pysideuic
from PySide import QtCore, QtGui

fname = "scripts/python/example.ui"
formt, btype = MaxPlus.LoadUiType(fname)

class TestWidget(btype, formt):
    def __init__(self, parent=None):
        btype.__init__(self)
        formt.__init__(self)
        self.setupUi(self)
        
form = TestWidget()
form.show()