The Render class

To help make this functionality easier to use in future, here are the methods used and packaged into a class, whose source code is also available at https://github.com/kjam/wswp/blob/master/code/chp5/browser_render.py:

import time 

class BrowserRender(QWebView): 
    def __init__(self, show=True): 
        self.app = QApplication(sys.argv) 
        QWebView.__init__(self) 
        if show: 
            self.show() # show the browser 

    def download(self, url, timeout=60): 
        """Wait for download to complete and return result""" 
        loop = QEventLoop() 
        timer = QTimer() 
        timer.setSingleShot(True) 
        timer.timeout.connect(loop.quit) 
        self.loadFinished.connect(loop.quit) 
        self.load(QUrl(url)) 
        timer.start(timeout * 1000) 
        loop.exec_() # delay here until download finished 
        if timer.isActive(): 
            # downloaded...