How to get key press work in St.Entry of gjs

Question

I want to press the 'Enter' key to call a function; I test many codes in key-press-event part, but no one work. I also don't know which key_symbol is the right one between those Clutter.KEY_Escape KEY_ISO_Enter KEY_KP_Enter KEY_3270_Enter.

other signal like 'primary-icon-clicked' works.

https://gjs-docs.gnome.org/clutter9~9_api/clutter.actor#signal-key-press-event almost say nothing.

        let input = new St.Entry({
            name: 'searchEntry',
            style_class: 'big_text',
            primary_icon: new St.Icon({ gicon: local_icon("countdown-symbolic.svg") }),
            secondary_icon: new St.Icon({ gicon: local_icon("stopwatch-symbolic.svg") }),
            can_focus: true,
            hint_text: _('xxxx'),
            track_hover: true,
            x_expand: true,
        });
        input.connect('primary-icon-clicked', ()=>{add_timer();});
        input.connect('secondary-icon-clicked', ()=>{add_timer();});
        //~ input.connect('key-press-event', (event)=>{if(event.get_key_symbol() == Clutter.KEY_Left)add_timer();});
        input.connect('key-press-event', (self, event)=>{
            //~ let [success, keyval] = event.get_keyval();
            //~ let keyname = Gdk.keyval_name(keyval);
            //~ if (keyname === "Control_L"){add_timer();}
            //~ const symbol = event.get_key_symbol();
            //~ if (symbol === Clutter.KEY_KP_Enter) {add_timer(); return true;}
            //~ if (event.get_key_symbol() === Clutter.KEY_Enter){add_timer();}
            //~ if(event.keyval == Clutter.KEY_Enter){add_timer();} Clutter.KEY_Escape KEY_ISO_Enter KEY_KP_Enter KEY_3270_Enter KEY_equal
            });
        item_input.add(input);

I also want only input DIGIT and ':' (colon) in this Entry. `input.clutter_text.set_input_purpose(Clutter.DIGITS|Clutter.DATETIME);` does not work. — eexpress, Dec 29 '21 at 05:38
keyEvent.keyval == Clutter.KEY_Return, perhaps. refer to https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/blob/main/js/ui/popupMenu.js — eexpress, Jan 22 '22 at 08:31

andy.holmes · Answer 1 · 2021-12-29T22:33:56.640

If you want to run a callback when Enter is pressed in the entry, you probably want to connect to the activate signal of the child Clutter.Text actor:

let entry = new St.Entry();

entry.clutter_text.connect('activate', (actor) => {
    log(`Activated: ${actor.text}`);
});

For filtering input, note that Clutter.InputContentPurpose and Clutter.InputContentHintFlags are just hints for the input method. In other words, this is like when a smartphone knows to show the phone dialer keyboard instead of the QWERTY keyboard.

If you want to ignore "invalid" keypresses, you'll just have to do it the hard way:

const allowedKeysyms = [
  Clutter.KEY_KP_0,
  ...
  Clutter.KEY_KP_9,
  Clutter.KEY_0,
  ...
  Clutter.KEY_9,
  Clutter.KEY_colon,
];

entry.connect('key-press-event', (widget, event) => {
    if (!allowedKeysms.includes(event.get_key_symbol()))
        return Clutter.EVENT_STOP;

    return Clutter.EVENT_PROPAGATE;
});

thanks. I never know about what can clutter.text do, but it works well. actually I want monitor the key press and only show `digit` input, like mask input mode. so maybe I still need use `key-press-event`? — eexpress, Dec 29 '21 at 05:08
I find maybe Clutter.InputContentPurpose can do this. but here is a python article, http://pygobject-doc.gitee.io/pgi-docs/Clutter-0/enums.html#Clutter.InputContentPurpose. :( — eexpress, Dec 29 '21 at 05:21

How to get key press work in St.Entry of gjs

1 Answers1