PyQt5 enable "select all" (Ctrl/Cmd+A) in file dialogs

Question

For a simple file dialog like:

from PyQt5.Qt import *
import sys

app = QApplication(sys.argv)
OpenFile = QFileDialog()
filenames = OpenFile.getOpenFileNames()
print(filenames)

Shift-select works to select multiple items, but Ctrl/Cmd+A doesn't. Is this an OS thing, or should it be enabled in a certain way in PyQt5?

Edit: The reason why it doesn't work is because of this: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-17291

Qt expects a menubar with a keyboard shortcut, and a QFileDialog has no menubar, thus lacking shortcuts like "select all".

Which platform are you using? Everything works as should on Linux (Manjaro KDE) — icwebndev
macOS 10.14, although I don't remember it working on 10.13 either. — komodovaran_
It may be something Mac specific, I'm not sure, I don't have any experience with it. Have you tried telling Qt to not use native dialogs? That's a QFileDialog::DontUseNativeDialog flag. — icwebndev

komodovaran_ komodovaran_ · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-18T12:08:09

Based on the bug report in the post above, I found that simply adding a dummy "Select all" command to the menubar on MacOS will make the shortcut available.

If using .ui files, simply add a Select All to Edit with ⌘A through Qt Creator.

from PyQt5.QtWidgets import *
import sys

class Example(QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.initUI()
        self.initMenuBar()

    def initUI(self):
        self.show()

    def initMenuBar(self):
        menubar = self.menuBar()

        fileMenu = menubar.addMenu("&File")
        editMenu = menubar.addMenu("&Edit")

        actionOpen = QAction("Open", self)
        actionOpen.triggered.connect(self.openFiles)
        actionOpen.setShortcut("Ctrl+O")
        fileMenu.addAction(actionOpen)

        actionSelectAll = QAction("Select All", self)
        actionSelectAll.setShortcut("Ctrl+A")
        editMenu.addAction(actionSelectAll)

    def openFiles(self):
        filenames = QFileDialog.getOpenFileNames()
        print(filenames)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    ex = Example()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

PyQt5 enable "select all" (Ctrl/Cmd+A) in file dialogs

1 Answers