PyQt with Python GUI Programming Tutorial 13 – A Comprehensive Guide for Editors

In this tutorial, we will continue to explore the Editor application and focus on implementing the search functionality using PyQt and Python. We will cover how to create a search bar, search through the text in the editor, and highlight the search results.

Let’s start by creating a new Python file and importing the necessary modules:

import sys
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QMainWindow, QTextEdit, QVBoxLayout, QLineEdit, QPushButton
from PyQt5.QtGui import QTextCursor

Next, we will create a class for our main application window:

class Editor(QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()

        self.init_ui()

    def init_ui(self):
        self.setWindowTitle('Editor')
        self.setGeometry(100, 100, 800, 600)

        self.text_edit = QTextEdit()
        self.search_bar = QLineEdit()
        self.search_btn = QPushButton('Search')

        layout = QVBoxLayout()
        layout.addWidget(self.search_bar)
        layout.addWidget(self.search_btn)
        layout.addWidget(self.text_edit)

        self.search_btn.clicked.connect(self.search_text)

        central_widget = QWidget()
        central_widget.setLayout(layout)
        self.setCentralWidget(central_widget)

    def search_text(self):
        search_term = self.search_bar.text()
        cursor = self.text_edit.textCursor()
        cursor.select(QTextCursor.Document)

        if search_term:
            cursor = self.text_edit.document().find(search_term, cursor)
            if cursor.isNull():
                self.search_bar.setStyleSheet('background-color: #ff9999')
            else:
                self.search_bar.setStyleSheet('background-color: #ffffff')
                self.text_edit.setTextCursor(cursor)
                self.text_edit.ensureCursorVisible()

In the Editor class, we create a text editor widget, a search bar, a search button, and a layout to organize these widgets. We connect the clicked signal of the search button to the search_text method.

In the search_text method, we retrieve the search term from the search bar and use the find method to search through the text in the editor. If the search term is found, we set the text cursor to the found position and ensure that it is visible. If the search term is not found, we highlight the search bar to indicate that no results were found.

Finally, we create an instance of the Editor class and run the application:

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

Now, when you run the application, you will see a search bar at the top with a search button. You can enter a search term in the search bar and click the search button to highlight the text in the editor matching the search term.

This concludes our tutorial on implementing the search functionality in the Editor application using PyQt and Python. I hope you found this tutorial helpful and informative. Thank you for reading!