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widgetfocuskeypressurwid

How to change key mapping for urwid widget navigation?

How can I set/change the CommandMap in a SimpleFocusListWalker? 'up' and 'down' keystrokes are associated with changing the focus by default. I'd like to modify these to something else.

Is this possible?

Solution

  • One easy and effective solution is to override the keypress method of ListBox and substitute the keys:

    import urwid

class MyBox(urwid.ListBox):
    
    def keypress(self, size, key): 
        if key in {'up', 'down'}:
            print('use (shift) tab to move cursor.')
            return
        key_map = {
            "shift tab": "up",
            "tab": "down",
        }
        super().keypress(size, key_map[key])

button_list = [urwid.Button(str(k)) for  k in range(10)]
urwid.MainLoop(MyBox(button_list)).run()

    Using the built in keypress method is preferable, as it has niceties like skipping urwid.Divider() widgets and won't allow to focus to go out of bounds.