PyQt5 Tutorial #17 – Creating a Menu Bar with Menus & Actions & Keyboard Shortcuts

Menus and menu bars are an essential part of any graphical user interface. In this tutorial, we will learn how to create a menu bar with menus, actions, and keyboard shortcuts using PyQt5, a popular Python GUI framework.

Step 1: Import the necessary libraries

First, we need to import the necessary libraries. In this tutorial, we will be using PyQt5 and QtCore modules.

import sys
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QMainWindow, QAction
from PyQt5.QtCore import Qt

Step 2: Create the main window

Next, we need to create the main window for our application. We will subclass the QMainWindow class and create a __init__ method to set up the window.

class MenuBarDemo(QMainWindow):
   def __init__(self):
      super().__init__()
      self.initUI()

Step 3: Create the menu bar and menus

Now, we can create the menu bar and individual menus. We will use the menuBar method to create the menu bar, and the addMenu method to add menus to the bar. We can also set up keyboard shortcuts for our menus using the setShortcut method.

def initUI(self):
menuBar = self.menuBar()
fileMenu = menuBar.addMenu('File')
editMenu = menuBar.addMenu('Edit')
fileMenu.addAction('New').setShortcut('Ctrl+N')
fileMenu.addAction('Open').setShortcut('Ctrl+O')
fileMenu.addAction('Save').setShortcut('Ctrl+S')
editMenu.addAction('Copy').setShortcut('Ctrl+C')
editMenu.addAction('Paste').setShortcut('Ctrl+V')

Step 4: Run the application

Finally, we can run the application by creating an instance of the MenuBarDemo class and calling the show method.

if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
demo = MenuBarDemo()
demo.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

And that’s it! Now, you have a basic understanding of how to create a menu bar with menus, actions, and keyboard shortcuts using PyQt5. Happy coding!