Create a File Menu in Python PyQt

Do you want a menu in your PyQt app?

Pyqt has menu support. Almost every GUI app has a main menu at the top of the window. Adding a menu works slightly different than adding widgets.

A menu can contain sub menus, they are usually something like (File, Edit, View, History, Help). Every menu has actions.

The menu is created with:

menuBar = self.menuBar()
fileMenu = menuBar.addMenu('&File')

Then actions are added to the file menu:

fileMenu.addAction(newAction)
fileMenu.addAction(openAction)
fileMenu.addAction(exitAction)

These actions must be defined beforehand:

# Create new action
newAction = QAction(QIcon('new.png'), '&New', self)        
newAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+N')
newAction.setStatusTip('New document')
newAction.triggered.connect(self.newCall)

# Create new action
openAction = QAction(QIcon('open.png'), '&Open', self)        
openAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+O')
openAction.setStatusTip('Open document')
openAction.triggered.connect(self.openCall)

# Create exit action
exitAction = QAction(QIcon('exit.png'), '&Exit', self)        
exitAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+Q')
exitAction.setStatusTip('Exit application')
exitAction.triggered.connect(self.exitCall)

Complete code:

import sys
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtWidgets
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QMainWindow, QWidget, QPushButton, QAction
from PyQt5.QtCore import QSize    
from PyQt5.QtGui import QIcon

class MainWindow(QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        QMainWindow.__init__(self)

        self.setMinimumSize(QSize(300, 100))    
        self.setWindowTitle("PyQt menu example - pythonprogramminglanguage.com") 

        # Add button widget
        pybutton = QPushButton('Pyqt', self)
        pybutton.clicked.connect(self.clickMethod)
        pybutton.resize(100,32)
        pybutton.move(130, 30)        
        pybutton.setToolTip('This is a tooltip message.')  

        # Create new action
        newAction = QAction(QIcon('new.png'), '&New', self)        
        newAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+N')
        newAction.setStatusTip('New document')
        newAction.triggered.connect(self.newCall)

        # Create new action
        openAction = QAction(QIcon('open.png'), '&Open', self)        
        openAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+O')
        openAction.setStatusTip('Open document')
        openAction.triggered.connect(self.openCall)

        # Create exit action
        exitAction = QAction(QIcon('exit.png'), '&Exit', self)        
        exitAction.setShortcut('Ctrl+Q')
        exitAction.setStatusTip('Exit application')
        exitAction.triggered.connect(self.exitCall)

        # Create menu bar and add action
        menuBar = self.menuBar()
        fileMenu = menuBar.addMenu('&File')
        fileMenu.addAction(newAction)
        fileMenu.addAction(openAction)
        fileMenu.addAction(exitAction)

    def openCall(self):
        print('Open')

    def newCall(self):
        print('New')

    def exitCall(self):
        print('Exit app')

    def clickMethod(self):
        print('PyQt')

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
    mainWin = MainWindow()
    mainWin.show()
    sys.exit( app.exec_() )

If you are new to Python PyQt, then I highly recommend this book.

Download PyQt Examples

Create a File Menu in Python PyQt

Pyqt menu example