Pygame Text Input Module

This small module can be used to write text in pygame. It includes a blinking cursor that can be moved using the left and right as well as the home and the end button. Any key can be pressed for an extended period of time to make that key re-enter itself many times a second.

Here's an example of the module in use using the Ubuntu font:

Usage

The module is very easy to use. Simply create an instance of InputText in your code and then feed its update-method with pygame-events every frame. The surface with the text and the cursor can then be gotten using get_surface().

Here's a small example that displays a white window with the InputText-surface on it:

#!/usr/bin/python3
import pygame_textinput
import pygame
pygame.init()

# Create TextInput-object
textinput = pygame_textinput.TextInput()

screen = pygame.display.set_mode((1000, 200))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

while True:
    screen.fill((225, 225, 225))

    events = pygame.event.get()
    for event in events:
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            exit()

    # Feed it with events every frame
    textinput.update(events)
    # Blit its surface onto the screen
    screen.blit(textinput.get_surface(), (10, 10))

    pygame.display.update()
    clock.tick(30)

If you want to catch the user input after the user hits Return, simply evaluate the return value of the update()-method - it is always False except for when the user hits Return, then it's True. To get the inputted text, use get_text(). Example:

if textinput.update(events):
    print(textinput.get_text())

Arguments:

Arguments for the initalisation of the TextInput-object (all of them are optional)

argument	description
initial_string	Initial text to be displayed
font_family	Name or path of the font that should be used. If none or one that doesn't exist is specified, the pygame default font is used.
font_size	Size of the font in pixels. Default is 35.
antialias	(bool) Declare if antialias should be used on text or not. True uses more CPU cycles.
text_color	The color of the text.
cursor_color	The color of the cursor.
repeat_keys_initial_ms	Time in ms until the key presses get repeated when a key is not released
repeat_keys_interval_ms	Time in ms between key presses if key is not released