How to use arrow keys to trigger an event PyQt4

Question

I want my arrow key on my keyboard to do the same thing if a button is pressed. I know if I want to connect to a fxn after clicking a button I would do something like self.btn.clicked.connect(fxnnamehere). Is there something like this put for the arrow keys on my keyboard?

Answer 1

For this case, the QShortCut class can be used:

import sys
from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui


class Widget(QtGui.QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()

        QtGui.QShortcut(QtCore.Qt.Key_Up, self, self.fooUp)
        QtGui.QShortcut(QtCore.Qt.Key_Down, self, self.fooDown)
        QtGui.QShortcut(QtCore.Qt.Key_Left, self, self.fooLeft)
        QtGui.QShortcut(QtCore.Qt.Key_Right, self, self.fooRight)

    def fooUp(self):
        print("up")

    def fooDown(self):
        print("down")

    def fooLeft(self):
        print("left")

    def fooRight(self):
        print("right")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    w = Widget()
    w.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

---

In your particular case it seems that you are using the code generated by Qt Designer, that class that provides is not a qwidget, but a class that serves to fill in the original widget.

class Ui_MainWindow(object):
    def setupUi(self, MainWindow):
        ...

        QtGui.QShortcut(QtCore.Qt.Key_Up, MainWindow, self.fooUp)
        QtGui.QShortcut(QtCore.Qt.Key_Down, MainWindow, self.fooDown)
        QtGui.QShortcut(QtCore.Qt.Key_Left, MainWindow, self.fooLeft)
        QtGui.QShortcut(QtCore.Qt.Key_Right, MainWindow, self.fooRight)

    def fooUp(self):
        print("up")

    def fooDown(self):
        print("down")

    def fooLeft(self):
        print("left")

    def fooRight(self):
        print("right")