Develop Reference

KeyPressEvent without Focus

I am programming a simple GUI, that will open a opencv window at a specific point. This window has some very basic keyEvents to control it. I want to advance this with a few functions. Since my QtGui is my Controller, I thought doing it with the KeyPressedEvent is a good way. My Problem is, that I cannot fire the KeyEvent, if I am active on the opencv window.
So How do I fire the KeyEvent, if my Gui is out of Focus?
Do I really need to use GrabKeyboard?
The following code reproduces my Problem:
import sys
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import (QApplication, QWidget)
from PyQt5.Qt import Qt
import cv2
class MainWindow(QWidget):
def __init__(self):
super().__init__()
self.first = True
def openselect(self):
im = cv2.imread(str('.\\images\\Steine\\0a5c8e512e.jpg'))
self.r = cv2.selectROI("Image", im)
def keyPressEvent(self, event):
if event.key() == Qt.Key_Space and self.first:
self.openselect()
self.first = False
print('Key Pressed!')
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
win = MainWindow()
win.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

The keyPressEvent method is only invoked if the widget has the focus so if the focus has another application then it will not be notified, so if you want to detect keyboard events then you must handle the OS libraries, but in python they already exist libraries that report those changes as pyinput(python -m pip install pyinput):
import sys
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtWidgets
from pynput.keyboard import Key, Listener, KeyCode
class KeyMonitor(QtCore.QObject):
keyPressed = QtCore.pyqtSignal(KeyCode)
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super().__init__(parent)
self.listener = Listener(on_release=self.on_release)
def on_release(self, key):
self.keyPressed.emit(key)
def stop_monitoring(self):
self.listener.stop()
def start_monitoring(self):
self.listener.start()
class MainWindow(QtWidgets.QWidget):
pass
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
monitor = KeyMonitor()
monitor.keyPressed.connect(print)
monitor.start_monitoring()
window = MainWindow()
window.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

Passing methods from secondary GUI to main GUI in python

So I have 2 GUIs. One is the main gui which has one push button to activate the second gui. The second gui is a simple calculator which sums two numbers when I push the button with external function.The second gui (the calculator) runs fine standalone However when I try to activate the second gui from the main one the program crashes so I probably doing something wrong.
Also if I change the code in main to this:
class MainWindow(QtWidgets.QMainWindow, Ui_MainWindow):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
QtWidgets.QMainWindow.__init__(self, parent)
self.setupUi(self)
self.SumCalcBtn.clicked.connect(self.OpenSecondWindow)
def OpenSecondWindow(self):
self.ex = SumCalculator(self)
self.ex.show()
It runs but doesn't do anything in second gui when I push the button to sum the numbers.(it seems the methods didn't pass to the instance)
I attach the code for better understanding:
Main.py
import sys
from calculators import summary
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets
from SummaryUI import Ui_SummaryUI
from SummaryMain import SumCalc
from MainWindow import Ui_MainWindow
class SumCalculator(SumCalc):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
QtWidgets.QMainWindow.__init__(self, parent)
self.setupUi(self)
class MainWindow(QtWidgets.QMainWindow, Ui_MainWindow):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
QtWidgets.QMainWindow.__init__(self, parent)
self.setupUi(self)
self.SumCalcBtn.clicked.connect(self.OpenSecondWindow)
def OpenSecondWindow(self):
self.ex = SumCalc(self)
self.ex.show()
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
window = MainWindow()
window.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
SummaryMain.py
import sys
from calculators import summary
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets
from SummaryUI import Ui_SummaryUI
class SumCalc(QtWidgets.QMainWindow, Ui_SummaryUI):
def __init__(self):
QtWidgets.QMainWindow.__init__(self)
Ui_SummaryUI.__init__(self)
self.setupUi(self)
self.CalculateSumBtn.clicked.connect(self.sum_function)
def sum_function(self):
number_a = int(self.FirstNumberInput.text())
number_b = int(self.SecondNumberInput.text())
sum = summary(number_a, number_b)
self.SumResultsValue.setText(str(sum))
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
window = SumCalc()
window.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

replace self.ex = SumCalc(self) with self.ex = SumCalc() because the constructor(__init__) function of SumCalc does not take any argument (def __init__(self))
or juts add parameter parent to SumCalc's constructor so it becomes def __init__(self, parent=none)

PySide2 Non-Blocking QMessageBox doesn't show text

While my application does some time-consuming stuff, I want to display a message box to the user while the applications is busy. I don't want any buttons (like OK or Cancel) and I can't call exec_() on the message box because that is blocking.
I checked a number of qt sites and the code I need seems to boil down to:
message_box = QMessageBox()
message_box.setText(str('Reading Device, Please Wait...'))
message_box.show()
# do work here
message_box.close()
When I run the code, I get the message box, but without the text. What am I doing wrong?
I've included a working example below:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys
import time
from PySide2.QtWidgets import (QLineEdit, QPushButton, QApplication,
QVBoxLayout, QDialog, QMessageBox)
class Form(QDialog):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(Form, self).__init__(parent)
self.button = QPushButton("Click Me")
layout = QVBoxLayout()
layout.addWidget(self.button)
self.setLayout(layout)
# Add button signal to dowork slot
self.button.clicked.connect(self.dowork)
def dowork(self):
message_box = QMessageBox()
message_box.setText(str('Reading Device, Please Wait...'))
message_box.show()
delay = 2.5
while delay:
sys.stdout.write('Working...\n')
time.sleep(0.5) # do some time-consuming stuff...
delay -= 0.5
message_box.close()
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
form = Form()
print('starting app...')
form.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
If you click the button, the message box pops up and is shown while the 'work' is being done. When the 'work' is finished, the message box disappears again - as it should. But no text is shown in the message box.
There is a similar question here: qmessagebox-not-show-text-when-call-show, but that does not answer my question.

You can not have a task that consumes a lot of time (more than 30 ms) since it blocks the GUI eventloop preventing Qt from doing its job normally, instead it uses a thread next to the signals to update the GUI from the other thread:
import sys
import threading
import time
from PySide2 import QtCore, QtWidgets
class Form(QtWidgets.QDialog):
started = QtCore.Signal()
finished = QtCore.Signal()
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(Form, self).__init__(parent)
self.button = QtWidgets.QPushButton("Click Me")
layout = QtWidgets.QVBoxLayout(self)
layout.addWidget(self.button)
# Add button signal to dowork slot
self.button.clicked.connect(self.on_clicled)
self._message_box = QtWidgets.QMessageBox()
self._message_box.setText(str('Reading Device, Please Wait...'))
self._message_box.setStandardButtons(QtWidgets.QMessageBox.NoButton)
self.started.connect(self._message_box.show)
self.finished.connect(self._message_box.accept)
#QtCore.Slot()
def on_clicled(self):
thread = threading.Thread(target=self.dowork, daemon=True)
thread.start()
def dowork(self):
delay = 2.5
self.started.emit()
while delay:
sys.stdout.write('Working...\n')
time.sleep(0.5) # do some time-consuming stuff...
delay -= 0.5
self.finished.emit()
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
form = Form()
print('starting app...')
form.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

You should almost certainly be using QProgressDialog. Set minimum and maximum to zero for an 'indeterminate' look.
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qprogressdialog.html
Although forcing a redraw after your setText() will probably work:
self._message_box.repaint()
QtWidgets.QApplication.processEvents()

TextEdit programmatic way to setText without triggering textChanged Event?

I am using pyQt to display data in a textEdit then have the connected textChanged method to send the text to a server application. I need the same behavior exhibited from the QLineEdit.textEdited as textEdited in QLineEdit does not get triggered on setText.
Is there any solutions for this? Possibly a way to detect if the change was programmatic? Thanks in advance.

You can block the emission of the textChanged signal using blockSignals() method:
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets
class MainWindow(QtWidgets.QMainWindow):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(MainWindow, self).__init__(parent)
self.text_edit = QtWidgets.QTextEdit(
textChanged=self.on_textChanged
)
self.setCentralWidget(self.text_edit)
timer = QtCore.QTimer(
self,
timeout=self.on_timeout
)
timer.start()
#QtCore.pyqtSlot()
def on_textChanged(self):
print(self.text_edit.toPlainText())
#QtCore.pyqtSlot()
def on_timeout(self):
self.text_edit.blockSignals(True)
self.text_edit.setText(QtCore.QDateTime.currentDateTime().toString())
self.text_edit.blockSignals(False)
if __name__ == '__main__':
import sys
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
w = MainWindow()
w.resize(640, 480)
w.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

Hide current QMainWindow when next QMainWindow is called

I have multiple windows in a Python GUI application using PyQt5.
I need to hide current window when a button is clicked and show the next window.
This works fine from WindowA to WindowB but I get an error while going from WindowB to WindowC.
I know there is some problem in initialization as the initialization code in WindowB is unreachable, but being a beginner with PyQt, i can't figure out the solution.
WindowA code:
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets
from WindowB import Ui_forWindowB
class Ui_forWindowA(object):
def setupUi(self, WindowA):
# GUI specifications statements here
self.someButton = QtWidgets.QPushButton(self.centralwidget)
self.someButton.clicked.connect(self.OpenWindowB)
# More GUI specifications statements here
def retranslateUi(self, WindowA):
# More statements here
def OpenWindowB(self):
self.window = QtWidgets.QMainWindow()
self.ui = Ui_forWindowB()
self.ui.setupUi(self.window)
WindowA.hide()
self.window.show()
if __name__ == "__main__":
import sys
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
WindowA = QtWidgets.QMainWindow()
ui = Ui_forWindowA()
ui.setupUi(WindowA)
MainWindow.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
WindowB code:
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets
from WindowB import Ui_forWindowB
class Ui_forWindowB(object):
def setupUi(self, WindowB):
# GUI specifications statements here
self.someButton = QtWidgets.QPushButton(self.centralwidget)
self.someButton.clicked.connect(self.OpenWindowC)
# More GUI specifications statements here
def retranslateUi(self, WindowB):
# More statements here
def OpenWindowB(self):
self.window = QtWidgets.QMainWindow()
self.ui = Ui_forWindowC()
self.ui.setupUi(self.window)
WindowB.hide() # Error here
self.window.show()
# The below code doesn't get executed when Ui_forWindowB is called from A
if __name__ == "__main__":
import sys
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
WindowB = QtWidgets.QMainWindow()
ui = Ui_forWindowB()
ui.setupUi(WindowB)
MainWindow.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
It works fine from A to B where
WindowA.hide() # Works Properly
While calling WindowC from WindowB
WindowB.hide() # Shows error: name 'WindowB' is not defined
I understand that the initialization isn't done as the "if" statement doesn't get executed.
How to get this working?
I have many more windows to connect in this flow

When you run a Python script, the first file executed will be assigned the name __main__, therefore, if you first execute WindowA the code inside the block if __name__ == "__main__" gets executed and the application is started using WindowA as the main window, similarly if you execute your WindowB script first, the application will be started usingWindowB as the main window.
You cannot start two applications within the same process so you have to choose which one you want to be the main window, all the others will be secondary windows (even if they inherit from QMainWindow).
Nevertheless, you should be able to instantiate new windows from a method in your main window.
As a good practice, you could create a main script to handle the initialization of your application and start an empty main window that will then handle your workflow, also, you may want to wrap your UI classes, specially if they are generated using Qt creator, here is an example:
main.py
import PyQt5
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtWidgets
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication
from views.main_window import MainWindow
class App(QApplication):
"""Main application wrapper, loads and shows the main window"""
def __init__(self, sys_argv):
super().__init__(sys_argv)
# Show main window
self.main_window = MainWindow()
self.main_window.show()
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = App(sys.argv)
sys.exit(app.exec_())
main_window.py
This is the main window, it doesn't do anything, just control the workflow of the application, i.e. load WindowA, then WindowB etc., notice that I inherit from Ui_MainWindow, by doing so, you can separate the look and feel from the logic and use Qt Creator to generate your UI:
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QWidget, QMainWindow
from views.window_a import WindowA
from views.window_b import WindowB
from widgets.main_window import Ui_MainWindow
class MainWindow(Ui_MainWindow, QMainWindow):
"""Main application window, handles the workflow of secondary windows"""
def __init__(self):
Ui_MainWindow.__init__(self)
QMainWindow.__init__(self)
self.setupUi(self)
# start hidden
self.hide()
# show window A
self.window_a = WindowA()
self.window_a.actionExit.triggered.connect(self.window_a_closed)
self.window_a.show()
def window_a_closed(self):
# Show window B
self.window_b = WindowB()
self.window_b.actionExit.triggered.connect(self.window_b_closed)
self.window_b.show()
def window_b_closed(self):
#Close the application if window B is closed
self.close()
window_a.py
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QWidget, QMainWindow
from widgets.main_window import Ui_forWindowA
class WindowA(Ui_forWindowA, QMainWindow):
"""Window A"""
def __init__(self):
Ui_forWindowA.__init__(self)
QMainWindow.__init__(self)
self.setupUi(self)
# Do some stuff
window_b.py
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QWidget, QMainWindow
from widgets.main_window import Ui_forWindowB
class WindowA(Ui_forWindowB, QMainWindow):
"""Window B"""
def __init__(self):
Ui_forWindowB.__init__(self)
QMainWindow.__init__(self)
self.setupUi(self)
# Do some stuff
Hopefully should give you an idea to get you going.