QDesktopWidget

The QDesktopWidget class provides access to screen information on multi-head systems. More…

Inheritance diagram of PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget

Synopsis

Functions

Signals

Detailed Description

Systems with more than one graphics card and monitor can manage the physical screen space available either as multiple desktops, or as a large virtual desktop.

This class provides information about the user’s desktop, such as its total size, number of screens, the geometry of each screen, and whether they are configured as separate desktops or a single virtual desktop.

Widgets provided by Qt use this class to place tooltips, menus and dialog boxes on the correct screen for their parent or application widgets. Applications can use this class to obtain information that can be used to save window positions, or to place child widgets and dialogs on one particular screen.

Obtaining a Desktop Widget

The desktop() function is used to get an instance of QDesktopWidget .

The widget’s screenGeometry() function provides information about the geometry of the available screens with. The number of screens available is returned by screenCount , and the screenCountChanged() signal is emitted when screens are added or removed. The screen number that a particular point or widget is located in is returned by screenNumber() .

Screen Geometry

To obtain the dimensions of a particular screen, call the screenGeometry() function. On some desktop environments, not all of the screen is available for applications to use; for example, an application dock or menu bar may take up some space. Use the availableGeometry() function to obtain the available area for applications.

QDesktopWidget also inherits the QWidget properties, width() and height() , which specify the size of the desktop. However, for desktops with multiple screens, the size of the desktop is the union of all the screen sizes, so width() and height() should not be used for computing the size of a widget to be placed on one of the screens.

On systems that are configured to use the available screens as a single, large virtual desktop, the virtualDesktop property will be set to true. In this case, the widget’s size is usually the size of the bounding rectangle of all the screens.

Use of the Primary Screen

For an application, the screen where the main widget resides is the primary screen. This is stored in the primaryScreen property. All windows opened in the context of the application should be constrained to the boundaries of the primary screen; for example, it would be inconvenient if a dialog box popped up on a different screen, or split over two screens.

../../_images/qdesktopwidget.png

In the illustration above, Application One’s primary screen is screen 0, and App Two’s primary screen is screen 1.

See also

QApplication desktop()

class QDesktopWidget

Creates the desktop widget.

If the system supports a virtual desktop, this widget will have the size of the virtual desktop; otherwise this widget will have the size of the primary screen.

Instead of using QDesktopWidget directly, use desktop() .

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.availableGeometry(point)
Parameters

point – QPoint

Return type

QRect

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.availableGeometry(widget)
Parameters

widget – QWidget

Return type

QRect

This is an overloaded function.

Returns the available geometry of the screen which contains widget .

See also

screenGeometry()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.availableGeometry([screen=-1])
Parameters

screen – int

Return type

QRect

Returns the available geometry of the screen with index screen . What is available will be subrect of screenGeometry() based on what the platform decides is available (for example excludes the dock and menu bar on macOS , or the task bar on Windows). The default screen is used if screen is -1.

Use screens() instead.

See also

screenNumber() screenGeometry() availableGeometry()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.isVirtualDesktop()
Return type

bool

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.numScreens()
Return type

int

Returns the number of available screens.

Use screens() instead.

See also

primaryScreen

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.primaryScreen()
Return type

int

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.primaryScreenChanged()
PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.resized(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1 – int

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.screen([screen=-1])
Parameters

screen – int

Return type

QWidget

Returns a widget that represents the screen with index screen (a value of -1 means the default screen).

If the system uses a virtual desktop, the returned widget will have the geometry of the entire virtual desktop; i.e., bounding every screen .

Use QScreen instead.

See also

primaryScreen screenCount virtualDesktop

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.screenCount()
Return type

int

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.screenCountChanged(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1 – int

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.screenGeometry(widget)
Parameters

widget – QWidget

Return type

QRect

This is an overloaded function.

Returns the geometry of the screen which contains widget .

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.screenGeometry([screen=-1])
Parameters

screen – int

Return type

QRect

Returns the geometry of the screen with index screen . The default screen is used if screen is -1.

Use screens() instead.

See also

screenNumber()

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.screenGeometry(point)
Parameters

point – QPoint

Return type

QRect

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.screenNumber(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1 – QPoint

Return type

int

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.screenNumber([widget=None])
Parameters

widget – QWidget

Return type

int

Returns the index of the screen that contains the largest part of widget , or -1 if the widget not on a screen.

See also

primaryScreen

PySide2.QtWidgets.QDesktopWidget.workAreaResized(arg__1)
Parameters

arg__1 – int