QAction

The QAction class provides an abstract user interface action that can be inserted into widgets. More

Inheritance diagram of PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction

Inherited by: QWidgetAction

Synopsis

Functions

Slots

Signals

Detailed Description

In applications many common commands can be invoked via menus, toolbar buttons, and keyboard shortcuts. Since the user expects each command to be performed in the same way, regardless of the user interface used, it is useful to represent each command as an action .

Actions can be added to menus and toolbars, and will automatically keep them in sync. For example, in a word processor, if the user presses a Bold toolbar button, the Bold menu item will automatically be checked.

Actions can be created as independent objects, but they may also be created during the construction of menus; the QMenu class contains convenience functions for creating actions suitable for use as menu items.

A QAction may contain an icon, menu text, a shortcut, status text, “What’s This?” text, and a tooltip. Most of these can be set in the constructor. They can also be set independently with setIcon() , setText() , setIconText() , setShortcut() , setStatusTip() , setWhatsThis() , and setToolTip() . For menu items, it is possible to set an individual font with setFont() .

Actions are added to widgets using addAction() or addAction() . Note that an action must be added to a widget before it can be used; this is also true when the shortcut should be global (i.e., ApplicationShortcut as ShortcutContext ).

Once a QAction has been created it should be added to the relevant menu and toolbar, then connected to the slot which will perform the action. For example:

openAct =  QAction(QIcon(":/images/open.png"), tr("&Open..."), self)
openAct.setShortcuts(QKeySequence.Open)
openAct.setStatusTip(tr("Open an existing file"))
connect(openAct, SIGNAL("triggered()"), self, SLOT("open()"))

We recommend that actions are created as children of the window they are used in. In most cases actions will be children of the application’s main window.

class QAction([parent=None])

QAction(icon, text[, parent=None])

QAction(text[, parent=None])

param parent

QObject

param icon

QIcon

param text

unicode

Constructs an action with parent . If parent is an action group the action will be automatically inserted into the group.

Note

The parent argument is optional since Qt 5.7.

Constructs an action with an icon and some text and parent . If parent is an action group the action will be automatically inserted into the group.

The action uses a stripped version of text (e.g. “&Menu Option…” becomes “Menu Option”) as descriptive text for tool buttons. You can override this by setting a specific description with setText() . The same text will be used for tooltips unless you specify a different text using setToolTip() .

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.MenuRole

This enum describes how an action should be moved into the application menu on macOS .

Constant

Description

QAction.NoRole

This action should not be put into the application menu

QAction.TextHeuristicRole

This action should be put in the application menu based on the action’s text as described in the QMenuBar documentation.

QAction.ApplicationSpecificRole

This action should be put in the application menu with an application specific role

QAction.AboutQtRole

This action handles the “About Qt” menu item.

QAction.AboutRole

This action should be placed where the “About” menu item is in the application menu. The text of the menu item will be set to “About <application name>”. The application name is fetched from the Info.plist file in the application’s bundle (See Qt for macOS - Deployment).

QAction.PreferencesRole

This action should be placed where the “Preferences…” menu item is in the application menu.

QAction.QuitRole

This action should be placed where the Quit menu item is in the application menu.

Setting this value only has effect on items that are in the immediate menus of the menubar, not the submenus of those menus. For example, if you have File menu in your menubar and the File menu has a submenu, setting the for the actions in that submenu have no effect. They will never be moved.

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.Priority

This enum defines priorities for actions in user interface.

Constant

Description

QAction.LowPriority

The action should not be prioritized in the user interface.

QAction.NormalPriority

QAction.HighPriority

The action should be prioritized in the user interface.

See also

priority

New in version 4.6.

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.ActionEvent

This enum type is used when calling activate()

Constant

Description

QAction.Trigger

this will cause the triggered() signal to be emitted.

QAction.Hover

this will cause the hovered() signal to be emitted.

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.actionGroup()
Return type

QActionGroup

Returns the action group for this action. If no action group manages this action then 0 will be returned.

See also

QActionGroup setActionGroup()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.activate(event)
Parameters

eventActionEvent

Sends the relevant signals for ActionEvent event .

Action based widgets use this API to cause the QAction to emit signals as well as emitting their own.

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.associatedGraphicsWidgets()
Return type

Returns a list of widgets this action has been added to.

See also

addAction() associatedWidgets()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.associatedWidgets()
Return type

Returns a list of widgets this action has been added to.

See also

addAction() associatedGraphicsWidgets()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.autoRepeat()
Return type

bool

See also

setAutoRepeat()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.changed()
PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.data()
Return type

object

Returns the user data as set in setData .

See also

setData()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.font()
Return type

QFont

See also

setFont()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.hover()

This is a convenience slot that calls activate(Hover).

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.hovered()
PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.icon()
Return type

QIcon

See also

setIcon()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.iconText()
Return type

unicode

See also

setIconText()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.isCheckable()
Return type

bool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.isChecked()
Return type

bool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.isEnabled()
Return type

bool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.isIconVisibleInMenu()
Return type

bool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.isSeparator()
Return type

bool

Returns true if this action is a separator action; otherwise it returns false .

See also

setSeparator()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.isShortcutVisibleInContextMenu()
Return type

bool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.isVisible()
Return type

bool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.menu()
Return type

QMenu

Returns the menu contained by this action. Actions that contain menus can be used to create menu items with submenus, or inserted into toolbars to create buttons with popup menus.

See also

setMenu() addAction()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.menuRole()
Return type

MenuRole

See also

setMenuRole()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.parentWidget()
Return type

QWidget

Returns the parent widget.

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.priority()
Return type

Priority

See also

setPriority()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setActionGroup(group)
Parameters

groupQActionGroup

Sets this action group to group . The action will be automatically added to the group’s list of actions.

Actions within the group will be mutually exclusive.

See also

QActionGroup actionGroup()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setAutoRepeat(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1bool

See also

autoRepeat()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setCheckable(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1bool

See also

isCheckable()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setChecked(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1bool

See also

isChecked()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setData(var)
Parameters

var – object

Sets the action’s internal data to the given userData .

See also

data()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setDisabled(b)
Parameters

bbool

This is a convenience function for the enabled property, that is useful for signals–slots connections. If b is true the action is disabled; otherwise it is enabled.

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setEnabled(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1bool

See also

isEnabled()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setFont(font)
Parameters

fontQFont

See also

font()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setIcon(icon)
Parameters

iconQIcon

See also

icon()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setIconText(text)
Parameters

text – unicode

See also

iconText()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setIconVisibleInMenu(visible)
Parameters

visiblebool

See also

isIconVisibleInMenu()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setMenu(menu)
Parameters

menuQMenu

Sets the menu contained by this action to the specified menu .

See also

menu()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setMenuRole(menuRole)
Parameters

menuRoleMenuRole

See also

menuRole()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setPriority(priority)
Parameters

priorityPriority

See also

priority()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setSeparator(b)
Parameters

bbool

If b is true then this action will be considered a separator.

How a separator is represented depends on the widget it is inserted into. Under most circumstances the text, submenu, and icon will be ignored for separator actions.

See also

isSeparator()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setShortcut(shortcut)
Parameters

shortcutQKeySequence

See also

shortcut()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setShortcutContext(context)
Parameters

contextShortcutContext

See also

shortcutContext()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setShortcutVisibleInContextMenu(show)
Parameters

showbool

See also

isShortcutVisibleInContextMenu()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setShortcuts(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1StandardKey

Sets a platform dependent list of shortcuts based on the key . The result of calling this function will depend on the currently running platform. Note that more than one shortcut can assigned by this action. If only the primary shortcut is required, use setShortcut instead.

See also

keyBindings()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setShortcuts(shortcuts)
Parameters

shortcuts

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setStatusTip(statusTip)
Parameters

statusTip – unicode

See also

statusTip()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setText(text)
Parameters

text – unicode

See also

text()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setToolTip(tip)
Parameters

tip – unicode

See also

toolTip()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setVisible(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1bool

See also

isVisible()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.setWhatsThis(what)
Parameters

what – unicode

See also

whatsThis()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.shortcut()
Return type

QKeySequence

Returns the primary shortcut.

See also

setShortcuts()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.shortcutContext()
Return type

ShortcutContext

See also

setShortcutContext()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.shortcuts()
Return type

Returns the list of shortcuts, with the primary shortcut as the first element of the list.

See also

setShortcuts()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.showStatusText([widget=None])
Parameters

widgetQWidget

Return type

bool

Updates the relevant status bar for the widget specified by sending a QStatusTipEvent to its parent widget. Returns true if an event was sent; otherwise returns false .

If a null widget is specified, the event is sent to the action’s parent.

See also

statusTip

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.statusTip()
Return type

unicode

See also

setStatusTip()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.text()
Return type

unicode

See also

setText()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.toggle()

This is a convenience function for the checked property. Connect to it to change the checked state to its opposite state.

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.toggled(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1bool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.toolTip()
Return type

unicode

See also

setToolTip()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.trigger()

This is a convenience slot that calls activate(Trigger).

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.triggered([checked=false])
Parameters

checkedbool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QAction.whatsThis()
Return type

unicode

See also

setWhatsThis()