Manually trigger an ENTER key press event on wxTextCtrl in wxWidgets for C++?

Question

I have this text control:

FTextCtrl = new wxTextCtrl(parent, wxID_ANY, _("Text"), wxPoint(20, 20), wxDefaultSize, wxTE_CENTRE | wxTE_PROCESS_ENTER, wxDefaultValidator, _T("ID_TC"));
FTextCtrl->Connect(wxEVT_CHAR, (wxObjectEventFunction)OnTextCharEvnt, NULL, this);

This function OnTextCharEvnt gets called whenever an Enter key is pressed on the text control.

How can I manually trigger this event (when my text cursor is inside the text control) and call this function OnTextCharEvnt using the same?

Why not simply call `OnTextCharEvnt` directly? Or better, move its code to a separate function that both `OnTextCharEvnt` and You can call when needed. — Remy Lebeau, Jun 09 '20 at 07:11
Yeah ok! but how do I call this function with EVENT wxEVTCHAR. How do I call this function explicitly with that event — Himanshu Poddar, Jun 09 '20 at 07:15
you are missing the point. You don't need to simulate input, you can just call your own function directly when you need it. — Remy Lebeau, Jun 09 '20 at 07:17
But calling this function directly `OnTextCharEvnt()` gives me error, like one argument required — Himanshu Poddar, Jun 09 '20 at 07:32
obviously, since events have arguments to describe the events. But if you write a separate function, you don't have to give it any arguments if you don't need to, eg: `void OnTextCharEvnt(wxKeyEvent& event) { if (event.GetKeyCode() == WXK_RETURN) doSomething(); }` where `doSomething()` is the new function that you can call anywhere else you need it. — Remy Lebeau, Jun 09 '20 at 09:08
But if this is too above your current skill level, then have a look at the text control's [`EmulateKeyPress()`](https://docs.wxwidgets.org/3.0/classwx_text_ctrl.html#aac3e7f2124aafd67df6f6efbc285a40b) method instead. — Remy Lebeau, Jun 09 '20 at 09:09
I got it what you said and I after some research I did using the same way — Himanshu Poddar, Jun 09 '20 at 09:56

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 09 '22 at 08:17

I use EVT_TEXT_ENTER It works ;

sample.h

enum{
 TEXT_FTextCtrl
}

sample.cpp

FTextCtrl = new wxTextCtrl(parent, TEXT_FTextCtrl, wxT("Text"), wxPoint(20, 20), wxDefaultSize, wxTE_CENTRE | wxTE_PROCESS_ENTER, wxDefaultValidator, _T("ID_TC"));

BEGIN_EVENT_TABLE(Sample, wxFrame)
EVT_TEXT_ENTER(TEXT_FTextCtrl, Sample::OnTextCharEvnt)
END_EVENT_TABLE()

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 09 '22 at 15:24

You don't need to trigger any events to call your own function -- just call it directly instead. Calling the event handler directly is awkward and not recommended, but this is a trivial solution avoiding it -- just have a normal function that you can call both from that event handler and directly:

void Sample::OnTextCharEvnt(wxCommandEvent& event) { DoHandleCharEvent(event.GetUnicodeKey()); }

void Sample::DoHandleCharEvent(wchar_t key) { ... your actual code for handling it ... }

void Sample::SomeOtherFunction() { DoHandleEnter(); }

If you used the recommended Bind() function rather than old Connect(), you could even avoid having the trivial OnTextCharEvnt() entirely by using a lambda instead, e.g.:

FTextCtrl->Bind(wxEVT_CHAR, [](wxCommandEvent& event) {
    DoHandleCharEvent(event.GetUnicodeKey());
});

All this ignores the fact that you should not be using wxEVT_CHAR with wxTextCtrl in the first place, but should handle either wxEVT_TEXT or wxEVT_TEXT_ENTER or both of them, instead of lower level char events (that won't get triggered at all if the user pastes something in the control, for example).

Manually trigger an ENTER key press event on wxTextCtrl in wxWidgets for C++?

2 Answers2