'How to get keyboard input in pygame?

I am making a game in pygame 1.9.2. It's a faily simple game in which a ship moves between five columns of bad guys who attack by moving slowly downward. I am attempting to make it so that the ship moves left and right with the left and right arrow keys. Here is my code:

keys=pygame.key.get_pressed()
if keys[K_LEFT]:
    location-=1
    if location==-1:
        location=0
if keys[K_RIGHT]:
    location+=1
    if location==5:
        location=4

It works too well. The ship moves too fast. It is near impossible to have it move only one location, left or right. How can i make it so the ship only moves once every time the key is pressed?

Solution 1:^[1]

pygame.key.get_pressed() returns a list with the state of each key. If a key is held down, the state for the key is 1, otherwise 0. Use pygame.key.get_pressed() to evaluate the current state of a button and get continuous movement:

while True:

    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    if keys[pygame.K_LEFT]:
        x -= speed
    if keys[pygame.K_RIGHT]:
        x += speed
    if keys[pygame.K_UP]:
        y -= speed
    if keys[pygame.K_DOWN]:
        y += speed

This code can be simplified by subtracting "left" from "right" and "up" from "down":

while True:

    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    x += (keys[pygame.K_RIGHT] - keys[pygame.K_LEFT]) * speed
    y += (keys[pygame.K_DOWN] - keys[pygame.K_UP]) * speed

The keyboard events (see pygame.event module) occur only once when the state of a key changes. The KEYDOWN event occurs once every time a key is pressed. KEYUP occurs once every time a key is released. Use the keyboard events for a single action or movement:

while True:

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == pygame.K_LEFT:
                x -= speed
            if event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT:
                x += speed
            if event.key == pygame.K_UP:
                y -= speed
            if event.key == pygame.K_DOWN:
                y += speed

See also Key and Keyboard event

Minimal example of continuous movement: replit.com/@Rabbid76/PyGame-ContinuousMovement

import pygame

pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((300, 300))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

rect = pygame.Rect(0, 0, 20, 20)
rect.center = window.get_rect().center
vel = 5

run = True
while run:
    clock.tick(60)
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            run = False
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            print(pygame.key.name(event.key))

    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    
    rect.x += (keys[pygame.K_RIGHT] - keys[pygame.K_LEFT]) * vel
    rect.y += (keys[pygame.K_DOWN] - keys[pygame.K_UP]) * vel
        
    rect.centerx = rect.centerx % window.get_width()
    rect.centery = rect.centery % window.get_height()

    window.fill(0)
    pygame.draw.rect(window, (255, 0, 0), rect)
    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()
exit()

Minimal example for a single action: replit.com/@Rabbid76/PyGame-ShootBullet

import pygame
pygame.init()

window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 200))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

tank_surf = pygame.Surface((60, 40), pygame.SRCALPHA)
pygame.draw.rect(tank_surf, (0, 96, 0), (0, 00, 50, 40))
pygame.draw.rect(tank_surf, (0, 128, 0), (10, 10, 30, 20))
pygame.draw.rect(tank_surf, (32, 32, 96), (20, 16, 40, 8))
tank_rect = tank_surf.get_rect(midleft = (20, window.get_height() // 2))

bullet_surf = pygame.Surface((10, 10), pygame.SRCALPHA)
pygame.draw.circle(bullet_surf, (64, 64, 62), bullet_surf.get_rect().center, bullet_surf.get_width() // 2)
bullet_list = []

run = True
while run:
    clock.tick(60)
    current_time = pygame.time.get_ticks()
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            run = False

        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            bullet_list.insert(0, tank_rect.midright)

    for i, bullet_pos in enumerate(bullet_list):
        bullet_list[i] = bullet_pos[0] + 5, bullet_pos[1]
        if bullet_surf.get_rect(center = bullet_pos).left > window.get_width():
            del bullet_list[i:]
            break

    window.fill((224, 192, 160))
    window.blit(tank_surf, tank_rect)
    for bullet_pos in bullet_list:
        window.blit(bullet_surf, bullet_surf.get_rect(center = bullet_pos))
    pygame.display.flip()

pygame.quit()
exit()

Solution 2:^[2]

import pygame
pygame.init()
pygame.display.set_mode()
while True:
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            pygame.quit(); #sys.exit() if sys is imported
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == pygame.K_0:
                print("Hey, you pressed the key, '0'!")
            if event.key == pygame.K_1:
                print("Doing whatever")

In note that K_0 and K_1 aren't the only keys, to see all of them, see pygame documentation, otherwise, hit tab after typing in

pygame.

(note the . after pygame) into an idle program. Note that the K must be capital. Also note that if you don't give pygame a display size (pass no args), then it will auto-use the size of the computer screen/monitor. Happy coding!

Solution 3:^[3]

I think you can use:

pygame.time.delay(delayTime)

in which delayTime is in milliseconds.

Put it before events.

Solution 4:^[4]

The reason behind this is that the pygame window operates at 60 fps (frames per second) and when you press the key for just like 1 sec it updates 60 frames as per the loop of the event block.

clock = pygame.time.Clock()
flag = true
while flag :
    clock.tick(60)

Note that if you have animation in your project then the number of images will define the number of values in tick(). Let's say you have a character and it requires 20 sets images for walking and jumping then you have to make tick(20) to move the character the right way.

Solution 5:^[5]

Try this:

keys=pygame.key.get_pressed()
if keys[K_LEFT]:
    if count == 10:
        location-=1
        count=0
    else:
        count +=1
    if location==-1:
        location=0
if keys[K_RIGHT]:
    if count == 10:
        location+=1
        count=0
    else:
        count +=1
    if location==5:
        location=4

This will mean you only move 1/10 of the time. If it still moves to fast you could try increasing the value you set "count" too.

Solution 6:^[6]

Just fyi, if you're trying to ensure the ship doesn't go off of the screen with

location-=1
if location==-1:
    location=0

you can probably better use

location -= 1
location = max(0, location)

This way if it skips -1 your program doesn't break

Solution 7:^[7]

You should use clock.tick(10) as stated in the docs.

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1
Solution 2	kabr8
Solution 3	×¡×˜× ×œ×™ ×’×¨×•× ×Ÿ
Solution 4	Jan Schultke
Solution 5	Samuel
Solution 6	Nathan
Solution 7	BoJack Horseman

'How to get keyboard input in pygame?

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

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