Keypress callback

[mflevine]

I would like to be able to capture keypresses and use them for callbacks. This could be used to make keyboard shortcuts in place of buttons.

[Jaudouard]

Perhaps a hidden input field with autofocus on ?
You would have several callbacks listening to this input and executing code accordingly.

I guess you would have to add an extra callback dedicated to clearing the input field everytime it is filled with something as well.

[mflevine]

Seems pretty hacky this way. Wont the input field lose focus as soon as the user starts interacting with other inputs?

[Jaudouard]

You are right, pretty hacky...

[konstantinmiller]

Oh, I'm a bit surprised. Is there no way one can create callbacks for keyboard events? That seems like a basic interaction pattern.

[emilhe]

You could try the Keyboard component in dash-extensions,

import dash
import dash_html_components as html
import json

from dash.dependencies import Output, Input
from dash_extensions import Keyboard

app = dash.Dash()
app.layout = html.Div([Keyboard(id="keyboard"), html.Div(id="output")])


@app.callback(Output("output", "children"), [Input("keyboard", "keydown")])
def keydown(event):
    return json.dumps(event)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server()

https://pypi.org/project/dash-extensions/

[alexcjohnson]

@emilhe Thanks for pointing out dash-extensions - lots of good stuff there! Some overlap with functionality we're already working on (eg flattened callback args #1180) and other things we haven't started on but have discussed. In particular Trigger #1054 is something we're very interested in adding to Dash itself, and Keyboard would be a great addition to dash-core-components. You're of course welcome to continue developing these features separately under dash-extensions but if you're interested to PR the more generally-applicable features into Dash or dash-core-components directly, we'd be glad to help 😎

[emilhe]

@alexcjohnson Thanks! As the components mature, i think it would be good (in particular for new users), if they were moved to dash-core-components. The Trigger component would probably be a good place to start (it is pretty simple), but i feel (based on community feedback) that the functionality provided by the Download and ServersideOutput components are even more needed. When i find some time, i'll take a look at the contribution guidelines :)

[aiqc]

Hmm looks like the Keyboard class got dropped from dash_extensions.
Not seeing it in their docs

>>> from dash_extensions import Keyboard

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: cannot import name 'Keyboard' from 'dash_extensions' (/Users/layne/.pyenv/versions/aiqc_dev/lib/python3.7/site-packages/dash_extensions/__init__.py)

[aiqc]

accessKey (string; optional): Keyboard shortcut to activate or add focus to the element.
https://dash.plotly.com/dash-html-components/button

Related:

• https://community.plotly.com/t/hotkeys-for-dash-accesskey/6680/3
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66587600/dash-plotly-hotkeys

[emilhe]

The Keyboard component was removed in favor of the more general EventListener component. While the latter does have feature parity (and beyond), the syntax is a bit more convoluted, so I am starting to rethink if I made the right decision.

https://www.dash-extensions.com/pages/components/event-listener

[phsamuel]

Feeling the same. Capturing the keyboard event should have been much easier. I am writing a local application with dash because of the good support of Cytoscape. But maybe it would have been much easier if I simply used QT.

[S0mbre]

I've succeeded in applying the EventListener from dash extensions. For those who'd need, here's an example code I use to capture Return key hits on a couple of Mantine Inputs:

from dash import dcc, html, callback, Input, Output, State, ctx, no_update
from dash.exceptions import PreventUpdate
import dash_mantine_components as dmc
from dash_iconify import DashIconify
from dash_extensions import EventListener

# CAPTURE ONLY KEY PRESSES
events = [{'event': 'keydown', 'props': ['key']}]

# THE INPUTS
input_login = EventListener(dmc.TextInput(label='', id='login__input_login', placeholder='Username', radius='lg', icon=[DashIconify(icon='bxs:user', width=20)],
                            size='md', style={'margin': '0% 1%'}), id='login__input_login_events', events=events)
input_password = EventListener(dmc.PasswordInput(label='', id='login__input_password', placeholder='Password', radius='lg', icon=[DashIconify(icon='bxs:lock-alt', width=20)],
                               size='md', style={'margin': '0% 1%'}), id='login__input_password_events', events=events) 

#======================== MAIN LAYOUT ========================#

def layout():
    # there are also other components here, but I've cut them away for clarity...
    return html.Div([dmc.LoadingOverlay(dmc.Stack([input_login, input_password], 
                                                  justify='center', align='stretch', spacing='lg'))], 
                                                  style={'margin': '10% 30%'})

#======================== CALLBACKS ========================#

@callback(
    output={
        'hi_user_value': Output('login__hi_user', 'children'),
        'alert_err_value': Output('login__alert_error', 'children'),
        'alert_err_hidden': Output('login__alert_error', 'hide'),
        'div_admin_action_hidden': Output('login__div_admin_actions', 'hidden'),
        'div_logged_in_hidden': Output('login__div_logged_in', 'hidden'),
        'div_login_hidden': Output('login__div_login', 'hidden')
    },
    inputs=[
        Input('login__input_login_events', 'n_events'),           # login input keydown event count
        Input('login__input_password_events', 'n_events'),    # password input keydown event count
        State('login__input_login', 'value'),                             # login value
        State('login__input_password', 'value'),                      # password value
        State('login__input_login_events', 'event'),                # login input keydown event
        State('login__input_password_events', 'event')          # password input keydown event
    ]
)
def update_layout(login_nevents, password_nevents, in_login, in_password, login_event, password_event): 
    # get trigger source, return if none  
    fired_id = ctx.triggered_id
    if not fired_id:
        raise PreventUpdate

    # block updating if any other key was hit BUT the Enter key on either of the two inputs
    if (fired_id == 'login__input_password_events' and (not password_nevents or password_event.get('key', '') != 'Enter')) or \
       (fired_id == 'login__input_login_events' and (not login_nevents or login_event.get('key', '') != 'Enter')):
        raise PreventUpdate
    
    # Enter was pressed on login input
    login_return = fired_id == 'login__input_login_events' and login_nevents
    # Enter was pressed on password input
    passw_return = fired_id == 'login__input_password_events' and password_nevents

    if login_return or passw_return:
        # do login stuff ...

    raise PreventUpdate

BTW there's no need to wrap your dash app in dash_extensions.enrich.DashProxy (as suggested in the docs example). Mine works like a charm on a bare dash app.