How to make item view render rich (html) text in Qt

My answer is mostly inspired by @serge_gubenko's one. However, there were made several improvements so that the code is finally useful in my application.

class HtmlDelegate : public QStyledItemDelegate
{
protected:
    void paint ( QPainter * painter, const QStyleOptionViewItem & option, const QModelIndex & index ) const;
    QSize sizeHint ( const QStyleOptionViewItem & option, const QModelIndex & index ) const;
};

void HtmlDelegate::paint(QPainter *painter, const QStyleOptionViewItem &option, const QModelIndex &index) const
{
    QStyleOptionViewItemV4 optionV4 = option;
    initStyleOption(&optionV4, index);

    QStyle *style = optionV4.widget? optionV4.widget->style() : QApplication::style();

    QTextDocument doc;
    doc.setHtml(optionV4.text);

    /// Painting item without text
    optionV4.text = QString();
    style->drawControl(QStyle::CE_ItemViewItem, &optionV4, painter);

    QAbstractTextDocumentLayout::PaintContext ctx;

    // Highlighting text if item is selected
    if (optionV4.state & QStyle::State_Selected)
        ctx.palette.setColor(QPalette::Text, optionV4.palette.color(QPalette::Active, QPalette::HighlightedText));

    QRect textRect = style->subElementRect(QStyle::SE_ItemViewItemText, &optionV4);
    painter->save();
    painter->translate(textRect.topLeft());
    painter->setClipRect(textRect.translated(-textRect.topLeft()));
    doc.documentLayout()->draw(painter, ctx);
    painter->restore();
}

QSize HtmlDelegate::sizeHint(const QStyleOptionViewItem &option, const QModelIndex &index) const
{
    QStyleOptionViewItemV4 optionV4 = option;
    initStyleOption(&optionV4, index);

    QTextDocument doc;
    doc.setHtml(optionV4.text);
    doc.setTextWidth(optionV4.rect.width());
    return QSize(doc.idealWidth(), doc.size().height());
}

This one is in PySide. Rather than doing a lot of custom drawing, I pass the QPainter to the QLabel and make it draw itself. Highlighting code borrowed from other answers.

from PySide import QtGui

class TaskDelegate(QtGui.QItemDelegate):
    #https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.7/qitemdelegate.html#drawDisplay
    #https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-4.7/qwidget.html#render
    def drawDisplay(self, painter, option, rect, text):
        label = QtGui.QLabel(text)

        if option.state & QtGui.QStyle.State_Selected:
            p = option.palette
            p.setColor(QtGui.QPalette.WindowText, p.color(QtGui.QPalette.Active, QtGui.QPalette.HighlightedText))

            label.setPalette(p)

        label.render(painter, rect.topLeft(), renderFlags=QtGui.QWidget.DrawChildren)

Here's the PyQt conversion of the combination of the above answers that worked for me. I would expect this to work virtually identically for PySide as well.

from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui

class HTMLDelegate(QtGui.QStyledItemDelegate):
    def paint(self, painter, option, index):
        options = QtGui.QStyleOptionViewItemV4(option)
        self.initStyleOption(options,index)

        style = QtGui.QApplication.style() if options.widget is None else options.widget.style()

        doc = QtGui.QTextDocument()
        doc.setHtml(options.text)

        options.text = ""
        style.drawControl(QtGui.QStyle.CE_ItemViewItem, options, painter);

        ctx = QtGui.QAbstractTextDocumentLayout.PaintContext()

        # Highlighting text if item is selected
        #if (optionV4.state & QStyle::State_Selected)
            #ctx.palette.setColor(QPalette::Text, optionV4.palette.color(QPalette::Active, QPalette::HighlightedText));

        textRect = style.subElementRect(QtGui.QStyle.SE_ItemViewItemText, options)
        painter.save()
        painter.translate(textRect.topLeft())
        painter.setClipRect(textRect.translated(-textRect.topLeft()))
        doc.documentLayout().draw(painter, ctx)

        painter.restore()

    def sizeHint(self, option, index):
        options = QtGui.QStyleOptionViewItemV4(option)
        self.initStyleOption(options,index)

        doc = QtGui.QTextDocument()
        doc.setHtml(options.text)
        doc.setTextWidth(options.rect.width())
        return QtCore.QSize(doc.idealWidth(), doc.size().height())

I guess you can use setItemDelegate method of the treeview to setup custom painter for your treeview items. In the delegate's paint method you can use QTextDocument to load item's text as html and render it. Please check if an example below would work for you:

treeview initialization:

...
    // create simple model for a tree view
    QStandardItemModel *model = new QStandardItemModel();
    QModelIndex parentItem;
    for (int i = 0; i < 4; ++i)
    {
        parentItem = model->index(0, 0, parentItem);
        model->insertRows(0, 1, parentItem);
        model->insertColumns(0, 1, parentItem);
        QModelIndex index = model->index(0, 0, parentItem);
        model->setData(index, "<span>blah-blah <b>some text</b> other blah</span>");
    }
    // create custom delegate
    HTMLDelegate* delegate = new HTMLDelegate();
    // set model and delegate to the treeview object
    ui->treeView->setModel(model);
    ui->treeView->setItemDelegate(delegate);
...

custom delegate implementation

class HTMLDelegate : public QStyledItemDelegate
{
protected:
    void paint ( QPainter * painter, const QStyleOptionViewItem & option, const QModelIndex & index ) const;
    QSize sizeHint ( const QStyleOptionViewItem & option, const QModelIndex & index ) const;
};

void HTMLDelegate::paint(QPainter* painter, const QStyleOptionViewItem & option, const QModelIndex &index) const
{
    QStyleOptionViewItemV4 options = option;
    initStyleOption(&options, index);

    painter->save();

    QTextDocument doc;
    doc.setHtml(options.text);

    options.text = "";
    options.widget->style()->drawControl(QStyle::CE_ItemViewItem, &options, painter);

    painter->translate(options.rect.left(), options.rect.top());
    QRect clip(0, 0, options.rect.width(), options.rect.height());
    doc.drawContents(painter, clip);

    painter->restore();
}

QSize HTMLDelegate::sizeHint ( const QStyleOptionViewItem & option, const QModelIndex & index ) const
{
    QStyleOptionViewItemV4 options = option;
    initStyleOption(&options, index);

    QTextDocument doc;
    doc.setHtml(options.text);
    doc.setTextWidth(options.rect.width());
    return QSize(doc.idealWidth(), doc.size().height());
}

hope this helps, regards

update0: changes to HTMLDelegate to make icons visible and different pen color for selected items

void HTMLDelegate::paint(QPainter* painter, const QStyleOptionViewItem & option, const QModelIndex &index) const
{
    QStyleOptionViewItemV4 options = option;
    initStyleOption(&options, index);

    painter->save();

    QTextDocument doc;
    doc.setHtml(options.text);

    options.text = "";
    options.widget->style()->drawControl(QStyle::CE_ItemViewItem, &options, painter);

    // shift text right to make icon visible
    QSize iconSize = options.icon.actualSize(options.rect.size());
    painter->translate(options.rect.left()+iconSize.width(), options.rect.top());
    QRect clip(0, 0, options.rect.width()+iconSize.width(), options.rect.height());

    //doc.drawContents(painter, clip);

    painter->setClipRect(clip);
    QAbstractTextDocumentLayout::PaintContext ctx;
    // set text color to red for selected item
    if (option.state & QStyle::State_Selected)
        ctx.palette.setColor(QPalette::Text, QColor("red"));
    ctx.clip = clip;
    doc.documentLayout()->draw(painter, ctx);

    painter->restore();
}