I am trying to get keypresses in Python (2.7.10), bit I had no luck with getch(), as ord(getch()) was returning 255 constantly, so I am now using Tkinter. (I believe that Tkinter is also cross-platform so that should help as i plan to run this script on a Linux device).
I need to be able to get keypresses, even if they are not pressed while the Tkinter window is not active.
Here is my code:
from Tkinter import *
import time, threading
x = "Hi!"
def callback(event):
x = "key: " + event.char
print(x)
def doTk():
root = Tk()
root.bind_all("<Key>", callback)
root.withdraw()
root.mainloop()
thread1 = threading.Thread(target=doTk)
thread1.deamon = True
thread1.start()
I am not reveiving any errors, it is not not registering keypresses. I have also tried this without using threading, but it still does not work.
Please also note that I cannot use raw_input() as I need this to be able to run in the background and still get keypresses.
I am aware that this does not produce a frame, I do not want it to.
Thanks in advance for any help :)
PS: I have looked to other answers on StackOverflow and other sites, but they all either don't work or give solutions where keypresses are only registered when the tkinter frame is active.
Related
to-speech module to say a list and the audio module I am using is mixer form pygame. When i start playing the audio the tkinter program can not be interacted with and if I move the window the audio stops. I think some sort of threading may fix this but I am not sure how that works.
Problem
Tkinter window freezes.
Goal
To be able to interact with the program when audio is playing.
Code
import tkinter as tk
from gtts import gTTS
from io import BytesIO
import pygame
window = tk.Tk()
window.geometry("800x600")
window.resizable(0, 0)
def speak(text,language="en",accent="com"):
mp3_fp = BytesIO()
phrase = gTTS(text=text,lang=language,tld=accent)
phrase.write_to_fp(mp3_fp)
pygame.init()
pygame.mixer.init()
pygame.mixer.music.load(mp3_fp,"mp3")
pygame.mixer.music.play()
while pygame.mixer.music.get_busy():
pygame.time.delay(10)
pygame.event.poll()
def play():
data = list([boy,girl,pink,blue])
for i in data:
speak(i)
window.mainloop()
Code Explanation
The play()passes each value in the dictionary E.g. Boy, Girl to speak() separately where they are played one by one consecutively
In the speak() the audio from the text-to-speech module (gTTS) gets passed to pygame.mixer where it is played when the last word has been said.
First of all you need to post the minimum code necessary to demonstrate your problem. You haven't done that. Fortunately, this is a well-known "problem" and easy to answer without importing four libraries and building an application around what you've provided in order to answer it.
Secondly -- in the code that you have provided, data = list[boy,girl,pink,blue] isn't even proper syntax. It should be data = list(["boy", "girl", "pink", "blue"]). You have to post running code to get the best answers.
Lecture over.
The issue is that conventional unmodified Python runs in a single thread. If you want to know why that is then I invite you to research the GIL (Global Interpreter Lock) for more background.
There's only one thread, and when PyGame is doing something then the thread is busy and TkInter stops responding to input, and vice versa -- when TkInter is in the middle of something you'll find that PyGame stops responding.
You can demonstrate this phenomenon with this:
import tkinter as tk
import time
def delay():
time.sleep(10)
def main():
root = tk.Tk()
tk.Button(root, text="Test Me", command=delay).pack(expand=True, fill=tk.BOTH)
root.mainloop()
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
When you run this you'll see that the button is depressed, the button stays depressed while the application goes to sleep, and the button doesn't go back to its unclicked status until after it wakes up.
The only way I know of to get around your particular problem is by running TkInter and/or PyGame on separate threads.
You are going to have to read up on Python's Threading() module. You might start here. I've browsed it and it seems to be pretty complete.
Just to demonstrate the difference:
import tkinter as tk
import time
import threading
def delay():
print("Delay started...")
time.sleep(10)
print("... and finished.")
def dispatchDelayToThread():
t = threading.Thread(target=delay)
t.start()
def main():
root = tk.Tk()
tk.Button(root, text="Test Me", command=dispatchDelayToThread).pack(expand=True, fill=tk.BOTH)
root.mainloop()
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
I didn't even really change the code any! I added a function to dispatch the code I'd already written then changed the button to call the dispatcher instead of the code. Very easy to implement.
Run this and you'll see that the button returns to ready right away. If you run this from the command line you'll see that it prints a line when you enter the thread, and another line when the thread completes. And an even cooler thing is that if you click the button three times in a row you'll get three "starting" message, followed by three "finished" messages shortly afterwards.
To demonstrate this threading using your own code:
import pygame
import tkinter as tk
import io
import gtts
import threading
def speak(text,language="en",accent="com"):
mp3_fp = io.BytesIO()
phrase = gtts.gTTS(text=text,lang=language,tld=accent)
phrase.write_to_fp(mp3_fp)
pygame.init()
pygame.mixer.init()
pygame.mixer.music.load(mp3_fp,"mp3")
pygame.mixer.music.play()
while pygame.mixer.music.get_busy():
pygame.time.delay(10)
pygame.event.poll()
def dispatchPlay():
t = threading.Thread(target=play)
t.start()
def play():
data = list(["boy", "girl", "pink", "blue"])
for i in data:
speak(i)
def main():
root = tk.Tk()
root.geometry('300x200')
tk.Button(root, text="This is a clicky button", command=dispatchPlay).pack(expand=True, fill=tk.BOTH)
root.mainloop()
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Generally you would have your user interface on one thread, frame updates on another thread if it's a game, sound stuff on yet another thread, networking connection on a thread, etc., with all of them tied together through some kind of messaging system.
Note well, however, that in conventional unmodified Python there is only ever one thread running at any one time! You can have a hundred threads spawned, but only one of them will run at a time. Python sucks at multithreading computationally-intensive tasks, but shines in threading out I/O stuff that you usually just spend your time waiting on.
This is my first question.
I have a python program that recognize voice and reply with voice.
I wish to add a little GUI for my program (it should have only an image on background and a button to quit the program)
I would like that when I launch my code from terminal, it opened a Tkinter window and at the same time the python program start.
I’m working on Mac Os.
I use speech_recognition package to recognize voice and I use NSS speaker to let my computer speak.
This is a example of my code:
import speech_recognition as sr
from AppKit import NSSpeechSynthesizer
#VARIABLES
L = sr.Recognizer() #LISTENING
nssp = NSSpeechSynthesizer #SPEAKING
S = nssp.alloc().init()
while True:
audio = L.listen(source)
s = L.recognize_google(audio, language="en-US")
if s == "hi":
S.startSpeakingString_("Hello!!!")
Where do I have to write the Tkinter instructions to make sure that when I run my code it opens only a Tkinter window (while my program goes on) and not a shell's one?
You'll find it difficult to introduce your GUI as your code has already been written, note that everything in Tkinter has to be stored in some sort of Label or Widget and so you can't just print what you already have onto the Tkinter screen.
Here is some code to create a basic Tkinter window. Try searching online and playing around with how to present your variables within said window
import tkinter
from tkinter import *
root = tkinter.Tk()
root.configure(background = "#66ffdd") #here you can use any hex color code or just leave it blank and configure as default
root.title("Voice Program") #use the name of your program (this is the window header/title)
root.geometry("800x500") #these are your window dimensions
welcome = tkinter.Message(root, text = "Welcome to my program")
button = tkinter.Button(root, text="This button", command=print("hello")) #here insert a function for the button to perform i.e quit
welcome.pack()
button.pack() #packing presents your variables to the window - you can also use other geometry managers like grid
This site is really useful for showing you what widgets are available and what you can do with them - try searching any issues or posting a more specific question in the future if you struggle.
http://effbot.org/tkinterbook/button.htm
In my Program I want to use forget() on a button. Now if I try that, the program crashes. I know that it has something to do with threading but I couldn't find a soultion yet. Thanks in advance. Here is my examplecode:
import Tkinter as tk
import thread
window = tk.Tk()
def ok():
pass
def voice():
button1.forget()
print("If you see this, it works!")
thread.start_new_thread(voice,())
button1=tk.Button(command=ok, text="PRESS")
button1.pack()
window.mainloop()
You can't access tkinter objects from any thread but the thread that creates the object. In other words, you can't call button1.forget() from a thread and expect it to work reliably.
The generally accepted solution is to have your thread(s) write information to a thread-safe queue, and have your GUI thread poll that queue perioducally, pull an item off, and do whatever that item is requesting.
So I solved this problem simply by using the module mtTkinter , which you can find here :
http://tkinter.unpythonic.net/wiki/mtTkinter To use it you only have to write import mtTkinter as Tkinter at the beginning. After that you can use your Tkinter normally. This module changes nothing in Tkinter, it only makes it thread-friendly.
Tkinter is notorious for the fact that its lack of thread safety means that code you have written can sometimes work, and sometimes cause the entire program to hang with no errors produced, which is a pain.
Luckily, Tkinter does have its own measure for dealing with the problem, so to start a a thread with voice in it, just call voice. However, at theend of voice make sure you have made use of the window.after method to call it again later down the line. For example:
import Tkinter as tk
import thread
window = tk.Tk()
def ok():
pass
def voice():
button1.forget()
print("If you see this, it works!")
window.after(10, voice())
voice()
button1=tk.Button(command=ok, text="PRESS")
button1.pack()
window.mainloop(
I am creating a little time management tool, using Tkinter, so I can keep on task at work. I am having trouble with one aspect that I cannot seem to get working. I'm using the error box so that it is displayed in front of all other windows.
As it is now, the program starts a new thread on a function that keeps track of time, and compares it to the time the user entered for their task. Once real time > the time entered by the user, it starts another thread to spawn the tkMessageBox. I have tried this without starting a new thread to spawn the tkMessageBox, and the problem is the same. If the user enters the same time for 2 separate tasks, the error pop up freezes. I'm having trouble finding information on this topic specifically... The behaviour is odd because if I have 2 alerts, lets say 1 at 0600 and one at 0601, but I do not close the first error box that pops up and let it stay up until the second alert triggers, the second alert will just replace the first one(I would like multiple error boxes to pop up if possible). It's only the alerts that have the same trigger time that cause the pop up to freeze though.
This is my first GUI program and only started learning the concept of threading, and GUIs in the past 24 hours, so I'm not sure if this is a problem with threading or the tkMessageBox. Because of the behaviour of the error box, I’m thinking it is the thread module combined with the tkMessageBox module. The command I'm using is:
tkMessageBox.showerror('TIMER ALERT!!!', comp_msg)
Here is the source I put comments in there to help. The tkMessageBox I’m talking about is line 56.
I guess I'm not sure if I can even do what I am trying to do with the pop-up box, if I can, I'm not sure how. If I can't, is there a alternative way to spawn multiple error type pop-up boxes with Tkinter? I just want multiple boxes to be able to appear at any given time.
Thanks in advance, and I really appreciate any help at all.
EDIT:
import thread
from Tkinter import *
#Spawns Error Box. Runs in it's own thread.
def message_box(comp_msg,q): # q is an empty string because of thread module.
print "Spawning Error Box..."
eb =Toplevel()
eb.config(master=None,bg="red")
pop_l = Label(eb,text="ALERT!!!")
pop_l2=Label(eb,text=comp_msg)
pop_l.pack(pady=10,padx=10)
pop_l2.pack(pady=15,padx=10)
return eb
thread.start_new_thread(message_box,(comp_msg,""))
tkmessageBox default dialog boxes are modal. You could implement a simple none modal dialog box for this application. Here is a good document about creating custom dialog boxes.
This way you can create as many new custom dialog boxes as your app requires, since each one is just a new Toplevel.
Here is a simple Tkinter app that shows the clock on the main window. When you click on the button it starts new tkMessageBox dialog boxes in new threads. (If you run it) You could see that the main thread that runs the TK event loop is working (since the time is getting updated), but the error boxes are not showing up as expected.
#!/usr/bin/env python
import datetime
import threading
from Tkinter import *
import tkMessageBox
class MyApp(Frame):
def __init__(self, root=None):
if not root:
root = Tk()
self.time_var = StringVar()
self.time_var.set('starting timer ...')
self.root = root
Frame.__init__(self, root)
self.init_widgets()
self.update_time()
def init_widgets(self):
self.label = Label(self.root, textvariable=self.time_var)
self.label.pack()
self.btn = Button(self.root, text='show error', command=self.spawn_errors)
self.btn.pack()
def update_time(self):
self.time_var.set( str(datetime.datetime.now()) )
self.root.after(1000, self.update_time)
def spawn_errors(self):
for i in range(3):
t = threading.Thread(target=self.show_error)
t.start()
def show_error(self):
now = datetime.datetime.now()
tkMessageBox.showerror('Error: %s' % (str(now)), now)
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = MyApp()
app.mainloop()
I'm trying to capture key presses so that when a given combination is pressed I trigger an event.
I've searched around for tips on how to get started and the simplest code snippet I can find is in Python - I grabbed the code below for it from here. However, when I run this from a terminal and hit some keys, after the "Press a key..." statement nothing happens.
Am I being stupid? Can anyone explain why nothing happens, or suggest a better way of achieving this on Linux (any language considered!)?
import Tkinter as tk
def key(event):
if event.keysym == 'Escape':
root.destroy()
print event.char
root = tk.Tk()
print "Press a key (Escape key to exit):"
root.bind_all('<Key>', key)
# don't show the tk window
root.withdraw()
root.mainloop()
Tk does not seem to get it if you do not display the window. Try:
import Tkinter as tk
def key(event):
if event.keysym == 'Escape':
root.destroy()
print event.char
root = tk.Tk()
print "Press a key (Escape key to exit):"
root.bind_all('<Key>', key)
# don't show the tk window
# root.withdraw()
root.mainloop()
works for me...
What you're doing is reading /dev/tty in "raw" mode.
Normal Linux input is "cooked" -- backspaces and line endings have been handled for you.
To read a device like your keyboard in "raw" mode, you need to make direct Linux API calls to IOCTL.
Look at http://code.activestate.com/recipes/68397/ for some guidance on this. Yes, the recipe is in tcl, but it gives you a hint as to how to proceed.
Alternatively (a non-Python option) use XBindKeys.
Well, turns out there is a much simpler answer when using GNOME which doesn't involve any programming at all...
http://www.captain.at/howto-gnome-custom-hotkey-keyboard-shortcut.php
Archived on Wayback
Just create the script/executable to be triggered by the key combination and point the 'keybinding_commands' entry you create in gconf-editor at it.
Why didn't I think of that earlier?
tkinter 'bind' method only works when tkinter window is active.
If you want binding keystrokes combinations that works in all desktop (global key/mouse binding) you can use bindglobal (install with pip install bindglobal). It works exactly like standard tkinter 'bind'.
Example code:
import bindglobal
def callback(e):
print("CALLBACK event=" + str(e))
bg = bindglobal.BindGlobal()
bg.gbind("<Menu-1>",callback)
bg.start()