Menubar

A menubar is a common part of a GUI application. It is a group of commands located in various menus.

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

"""
ZetCode PyQt4 tutorial 

This program creates a menubar. The
menubar has one menu with an exit action.

author: Jan Bodnar
website: zetcode.com
last edited: August 2011
"""

import sys
from PyQt4 import QtGui

class Example(QtGui.QMainWindow):

    def __init__(self):
        super(Example, self).__init__()

        self.initUI()

    def initUI(self):               

        exitAction = QtGui.QAction(QtGui.QIcon('exit.png'), '&Exit', self)
        exitAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+Q')
        exitAction.setStatusTip('Exit application')
        exitAction.triggered.connect(QtGui.qApp.quit)

        self.statusBar()

        menubar = self.menuBar()
        fileMenu = menubar.addMenu('&File')
        fileMenu.addAction(exitAction)

        self.setGeometry(300, 300, 300, 200)
        self.setWindowTitle('Menubar')
        self.show()

def main():

    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    ex = Example()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

In the above example, we create a menubar with one menu. This menu contains one action which terminates the application if selected. A statusbar is created as well. The action is accessible with theCtrl+Q shortcut.

exitAction = QtGui.QAction(QtGui.QIcon('exit.png'), '&Exit', self)
exitAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+Q')
exitAction.setStatusTip('Exit application')

A QtGui.QAction is an abstraction for actions performed with a menubar, toolbar or with a custom keyboard shortcut. In the above three lines, we create an action with a specific icon and an 'Exit' label. Furthermore, a shortcut is defined for this action. The third line creates a status tip which is shown in the statusbar when we hover a mouse pointer over the menu item.

exitAction.triggered.connect(QtGui.qApp.quit)

When we select this particular action, a triggered signal is emitted. The signal is connected to thequit() method of the QtGui.QApplication widget. This terminates the application.

menubar = self.menuBar()
fileMenu = menubar.addMenu('&File')
fileMenu.addAction(exitAction)

The menuBar() method creates a menubar. We create a file menu and append the exit action to it.