I was presented with a Python logic for which I need to create a GUI. I want to use Qt for that purpose and ideally I would like to program it in C++, without using the Qt Creator.

What are recommended ways of combining a C++ Qt GUI and a Python logic, perhaps with a controlling layer which is either in Python or C++?

Due to prior research, I'm aware of certain tools like PySide, PythonQt, SWIG, Shiboken and others (although I haven't used them so far) and that it is very simple to import *.ui files into Python, but the number of possible ways is a bit overwhelming and I could not come up with a "good solution" so far.

Ideally, I would not use Qt Designer, but create the GUI (windows, custom widgets, helper classes etc) by hand, combine them into one or few classes which I expose to a Python/C++ controlling layer (by wrappers? DLL?) which manages the communication between GUI and logic.

How can I achieve this?

A short version of this question might just be: How can I use a Qt C++ GUI with a Python logic?

You can create your GUI application using qt c++ and wrap controler logic written in a python api embedding the python api. https://docs.python.org/2/extending/embedding.html But if you have many methods that will be boring to do and you may have some memory leaks if not well written in th c++ side.

Another solution may be using rpc calls to a python api using a webservice (rest api/json rpc ....Etc...). Qt application is client of a python rest api. like this you split the c code from the python one. You can do that using json rpc calls , or other apis,like jcon (https://github.com/joncol/jcon-cpp). You will too be able to find python and QT xml rpc api able to talk together.

swig (http://swig.org) may have some capability , but it is better used in the other way : calling c func from python