QShortcut Class Reference
[QtGui module]

On certain widgets, using '&' in front of a character will automatically create a mnemonic (a shortcut) for that character, e.g. "E&xit" will create the shortcut Alt+X (use '&&' to display an actual ampersand). The widget might consume and perform an action on a given shortcut. On X11 the ampersand will not be shown and the character will be underlined. On Windows, shortcuts are normally not displayed until the user presses the Alt key, but this is a setting the user can change. On Mac, shortcuts are disabled by default. Call qt_set_sequence_auto_mnemonic() to enable them. However, because mnemonic shortcuts do not fit in with Aqua's guidelines, Qt will not show the shortcut character underlined.

For applications that use menus, it may be more convenient to use the convenience functions provided in the QMenu class to assign keyboard shortcuts to menu items as they are created. Alternatively, shortcuts may be associated with other types of actions in the QAction class.

The simplest way to create a shortcut for a particular widget is to construct the shortcut with a key sequence. For example:

 shortcut = new QShortcut(QKeySequence(tr("Ctrl+O", "File|Open")),
                          parent);

When the user types the key sequence for a given shortcut, the shortcut's activated() signal is emitted. (In the case of ambiguity, the activatedAmbiguously() signal is emitted.) A shortcut is "listened for" by Qt's event loop when the shortcut's parent widget is receiving events.

A shortcut's key sequence can be set with setKey() and retrieved with key(). A shortcut can be enabled or disabled with setEnabled(), and can have "What's This?" help text set with setWhatsThis().

See also QShortcutEvent, QKeySequence, and QAction.

Property Documentation

 setKey(0);                  // no signal emitted
 setKey(QKeySequence());     // no signal emitted
 setKey(0x3b1);              // Greek letter alpha
 setKey(Qt::Key_D);              // 'd', e.g. to delete
 setKey('q');                // 'q', e.g. to quit
 setKey(Qt::CTRL + Qt::Key_P);       // Ctrl+P, e.g. to print document
 setKey("Ctrl+P");           // Ctrl+P, e.g. to print document