Specialized Text Console in wxPython - python

Is there any way that I can build an interactive text console using wxPython window application? It will be used to allow user to provide natural language input for the application to parse the grammar based on the language selected. It is not going to be used to run any shell or commands.

You can use a wx.TextCtrl for input and then when the user is done typing, you can have them press a button to do whatever checking you want done. Alternatively, you could use a wx.Timer to watch for idleness so when the user is idle for x seconds, it does the checking you want automatically too.

Related

How do I make an interactive application at the command line with Python, rather than just a script which returns output?

I would like to make a command line application in Python which, when I call its name, launches a new "mode" or interface at the command line, like launching Vim or Mutt, where key presses like 'q' or 'y' have specific functions - rather than just a script you run which returns some output.
How do I make this? Is there a specific library I would use for making this application? Or are there specific commands that tell the shell to display a kind of "window", and to listen for key presses and to execute commands on them?
You can take a look at this question, there are some useful advices. In particular the best option seems to be the curses extension module.
I suggest also to check out this project that can give you an useful example to do what you ask, even if it uses a GUI kit.

Using Mac’s Dictation Inside Python

Does anyone have any ideas on how to use the Mac’s built-in dictation tool to create strings to be used by Python?
To launch a dictation, you have to double-press the Fn key inside any text editor. If this is the case, is there a way to combine the keystroke command with the input command? Something like:
Step 1: Simulate a keystroke to double-press the Fn key, launching the Dictation tool, and then
Step 2. Creating a variable by using the speech-to-text content as part of the input function, i.e. text_string = input(“Start dictation: “)
In this thread (Can I use OS X 10.8's speech recognition/dictation without a GUI?) a user suggests he figured it out with CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent(src, 0x3F, true), but there is no code.
Any ideas? Code samples would be appreciated.
UPDATE: Thanks to the suggestions below, I've imported AppScript. I'm trying the code to work along these lines, with no success:
from appscript import app, its
se = app('System Events')
proc = app.processes[its.frontmost == True]
mi = proc.menu_bars[1].menu_bar_items['Edit'].menus[1].menu_items['Start Dictation']
user_voice_text = input(mi.click())
print(user_voice_text)
Any ideas on how I can turn on the dictation tool to be input for a string?
UPDATE 2:
Here is a simple example of the program I'm trying to create:
Ideally i want to launch the program, and then have it ask me: "what is 1 + 1?"
Then I want the program to turn on the dictation tool, and I want the program to record my voice, with me answering "two".
The dictation-to-text function will then pass the string value = "two" to my program, and an if statement is then used to say back "correct" or "incorrect".
Im trying to pass commands to the program without ever typing on the keyboard.
First, FnFn dictation is a feature of the NSText (or maybe NSTextView?) Cocoa control. If you've got one of those, the dictated text gets inserted into that control. (It also uses that control's existing text for context.) From the point of view of the app using an NSTextView, if you just create a standard Edit menu, the Start Dictation item gets added to the end, with FnFn as a shortcut, and anything that gets dictated appears as input, just like input typed on a keyboard, or pasted or dragged with the mouse, or via any other input method.
So, if you don't have a GUI app, enabling dictation is going to be pointless, because you have no way to get the input.
If you do have a GUI app, the simplest thing to do is just get the menu item via NSMenu, and click the item.
You're almost certainly using some kind of GUI library, like PyQt or Tkinter, which has its own way of accessing your app's menu. But if not, you can do it directly through Cocoa (using PyObjC—which comes with Apple's pre-installed Python, but which you'll have to pip install if you're using a third-party Python):
import AppKit
mb = AppKit.NSApp.mainMenu()
edit = mb.itemWithTitle_('Edit').submenu()
sd = edit.indexOfItemWithTitle_('Start Dictation')
edit.performActionForItemAtIndex_(sd)
But if you're writing a console program that runs in the terminal (whether Terminal.app or an alternative like iTerm), the app you're running under has its own text widget and Edit menu, and you can parasitically use its menu instead.
The problem is that you don't have permission to just control other apps unless the user allows it. In older versions of OS X, this was done just by turning on "assistive scripting for accessibility" globally. As of 10.10, there's an Accessibility anchor in the Privacy tab of the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences that has a list of apps that have permissions. Fortunately, if you're not on the list, the first time you try to use accessibility features, it'll pop up a dialog, and if the user clicks on it, it'll launch System Preferences, reveal that anchor, add your app to the list with the checkbox disabled, and scroll it into view, so all the user has to do is click the checkbox.
The AppleScript to do this is:
tell application "System Events"
click (menu item "Start Dictation" of menu of menu bar item "Edit"
of menu bar of (first process whose frontmost is true))
end tell
The "right" way to do the equivalent in Python is via ScriptingBridge, which you can access via PyObjC… but it's a lot easier to use the third-party library appscript:
from appscript import app, its
se = app('System Events')
proc = app.processes[its.frontmost == True]
mi = proc.menu_bars[1].menu_bar_items['Edit'].menus[1].menu_items['Start Dictation']
mi.click()
If you really want to send the Fn key twice, the APIs for generating and sending keyboard events are part of Quartz Events Services, which (even though it's a CoreFoundation C API, not a Cocoa ObjC API) is also wrapped by PyObjC. The documentation can be a bit tricky to understand, but basically, the idea is that you create an event of the appropriate type, then either post it to a specific application, an event tap, or a tap location. So, you can create and send a system-wide key-down Fn-key event like this:
evt = Quartz.CGEventCreateKeyboardEvent(None, 63, True)
Quartz.CGEventPost(Quartz.kCGSessionEventTap, evt)
To send a key-up event, just change that True to False.

Pygame: Graphical Input + Text Input

In Pygame, how can I get graphical input(e.g. clicking exit button) and also get input from the a terminal window simultaneously?
To give you context, my game has a GUI but gets its game commands from a "input()" command. How can I look for input from the command line while also handling graphics?
I'm not sure if this is possible, but if not, what other options do I have for getting text input from the user?
Thanks in advance.
You can't do that, unless you use the input command in a different thread, but then you have to deal with syncronization (which might be what you want or don't want to do).
The way I'd implement this is to create a kind of in-game console. When a special key (e.g. '\') is pressed you make the console appear, and when your application is in that state you interpreter key pressing not as in-game commands but... well, as text. You can print them in the console (using fonts). When a key (e.g "return") is pressed you can make the console disappear and the keys take back their primary functionality.
I did this for my pet-project and it works as a charm. Plus, since you are developing in python you can accept python instructions and use exec to execute them and edit your game "on fhe fly"

How to get in python the key pressed without press enter?

I saw here a solution, but i don't want wait until the key is pressed. I want to get the last key pressed.
The related question may help you, as #S.Lott mentioned: Detect in python which keys are pressed
I am writting in, though to give yu advice: don't worry about that.
What kind of program are you trying to produce?
Programas running on a terminal usually don't have an interface in which getting "live" keystrokes is interesting. Not nowadays. For programs running in the terminal, you should worry about a usefull command line User Interfase, using the optparse or other modules.
For interative programs, you should use a GUI library and create a decent UI for your users, instead of reinventing the wheel.Which wouldb eb etter for what you ar trying to do? Theuser click on an icon,a window opens on the screen, witha couple of buttons on it, and half a dozen or so menu options packed under a "File" menu as all the otehr windws on the screen - or - a black terminal opens up, with an 80's looking text interface with some blue-highlighted menu options and so on?. You can use Tkinter for simple windowed applications, as it comes pre-installed with Python + Windows, so that yoru users don't have to worry about installign aditional libraries.
Rephrasing it just to be clear: Any program that requires a user interface should either se a GUI library, or have a WEB interface. It is a waste of your time, and that of your users, to try and create a UI operating over the terminal - we are not in 1989 any more.
If you absolutely need a text interface, you should look at the ncurses library then. Better than trying to reinvent the wheel.
http://code.activestate.com/recipes/134892/
i think it's what you need
ps ooops, i didn't see it's the same solution you rejected...why, btw?
edit:
do you know:
from msvcrt import getch
it works only in windows, however...
(and it is generalised in the above link)
from here: http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread115282.html

print a string in an external application (python 3.1)

Suppose I have a game and a python script running. In this game, to speak you just type whatever you want and hit enter. This python script has a button on it that I want to output a predefined string into the game, and hit enter automatically (essentially, the button causes the character to speak the string). What would be the easiest way to implement this?
(just the actual 'send string to game and hit enter' thing, not the buttons and stuff)
Assuming your game is not running in the console (in that case you could use stdin), sendkeys might be an option on Windows. It allows you to send keystrokes to a certain window - in this case, the game window.
If the game is scriptable, you should of course use the game's own scripting options if available.
It depends on what hooks the game provides. If it doesn't provide any hooks, you may want to look into whatever your windowing system uses for automation. I've only done this sort of thing in Linux where I could use X's XTest extension (xte).

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