Python Forum

I'm trying to add Unicode glyphs to a QAction. But, my attempts thus far are crashing my desktop (actually logging me out). How do I use Unicode characters in QActions?
I've tried directly in the IDE like so:
QAction("• my string")

I've tried via Python (3.10.5) escape sequences, like so:
QAction("\u0394 my string")

and finally, I've tried with QObject.tr(), like so:

str = QObject.tr("\u0394 my string")
QAction(str)

How do I pass unicode characters to a QAction? I don't want crashes, now-what-i-mean.

Example

import sys

from PyQt5.QtCore import QSize, Qt
from PyQt5.QtGui import QIcon
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import (
    QAction,
    QApplication,
    QCheckBox,
    QLabel,
    QMainWindow,
    QStatusBar,
    QToolBar,
)

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

        self.setWindowTitle("My App")

        label = QLabel("Hello!")
        label.setAlignment(Qt.AlignCenter)

        self.setCentralWidget(label)

        toolbar = QToolBar("My main toolbar")
        toolbar.setIconSize(QSize(16, 16))
        self.addToolBar(toolbar)

        button_action = QAction("\u0394 my string", self)
        button_action.setStatusTip("This is a button with glyphs")
        button_action.triggered.connect(self.onMyToolBarButtonClick)
        toolbar.addAction(button_action)

        self.setStatusBar(QStatusBar(self))

    def onMyToolBarButtonClick(self, s):
        print("click", s)


app = QApplication(sys.argv)

window = MainWindow()
window.show()

app.exec()

Thanks, but I've tried that. You can see my question above and what I've tried that all cause the PC to crash/log out.

I just tested my app without a Unicode glyph and it seems stable. With what you've posted (that I've tried), the glyph prints, but it causes my system to log out.

---

Also, I should have shared this, and I don't know if it affects anything, but my stings are formatted like so:
-without Unicode (no crashes):
QAction(f"- this is a string {bytes.decode()}")

-with Unicode (crashes):
Q(f"• this is a string {bytes.decode()}")

I don't know if the decoding is making a difference...

This works for me. I increased font size to better see the glyph. I used UTF-16

import sys

from PyQt5.QtCore import QSize, Qt
from PyQt5.QtGui import QIcon
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import (
    QAction,
    QApplication,
    QCheckBox,
    QLabel,
    QMainWindow,
    QStatusBar,
    QToolBar,
)


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

        self.setWindowTitle("My App")

        label = QLabel("Hello!")
        label.setAlignment(Qt.AlignCenter)

        self.setCentralWidget(label)

        toolbar = QToolBar("My main toolbar")
        toolbar.setIconSize(QSize(16, 16))
        toolbar.setStyleSheet('font-size: 35px;')
        self.addToolBar(toolbar)

        button_action = QAction("\U0001F9DD my string", self)
        button_action.setStatusTip("This is a button with glyphs")
        button_action.triggered.connect(self.onMyToolBarButtonClick)
        toolbar.addAction(button_action)

        self.setStatusBar(QStatusBar(self))

    def onMyToolBarButtonClick(self, s):
        print("click", s)


app = QApplication(sys.argv)

window = MainWindow()
window.show()

app.exec()

The problem isn't getting Unicode characters to show, I have no trouble with that. The problem is when I use one, it causes my Linux Fedora (if that makes a difference) based PC to log me out of the desktop.

Have you tried running your script in the terminal?

Nevermind. Sorry guys. After removing the Unicode glyphs and quite a while of stability, I just got a crash. So, I have no idea what the problem is, but it still crashes. I was getting frequent crashes with glyphs, but after a while of stability, without glyphs it still crashes.

I hope you can see why I thought it was the glyphs. Bad for me because I have no clue what's causing it. Python may print an error to the console, but it crashes, so I can't see it. It could be QWebEngineView and my OS... but I have no reason to believe that, 'cause I have no idea why it crashes. The OS error is
Additional Information:
Source Context system_u:system_r:abrt_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023
Target Context system_u:object_r:xserver_misc_device_t:s0
Target Objects /dev/nvidiactl [ chr_file ]
Source gdb
Source Path gdb

and more. "chr_file"? Time to search engine.

Sorry to spam the thread, but I think I found the issue for anyone interested. It isn't Unicode at all (so it appears after 7 hours of stress testing), yet a malformed call to QVBoxLayout(). I called the method addWidget() like so:
box.addWidget(widget, Qt.AlignmentFlag.AlignTop)

The alignment flag argument was placed where the "stretch" argument should go. I should have done:
box.addWidget(widget, alignment=Qt.AlignmentFlag.AlignTop)

It's been stable for 7 hours, so if that is in fact the cause of the crashes, I'm surprised something like that would cause such instability. I mean why wouldn't it just crash the app? Or not run in the first place? Hopefully those questions don't indicate that I didn't find the issue. So far, so good.

Sorry for the bad question to begin with.

You didn't mention that you use PyQt6.
PyQt6 is not as forgiving of errors as PyQt5, and tends to crash immediately with no error message.

Yeah, @Axel_Erfurt, I'm running PyQt6 v6.4.0. It may be a fallacy, but I sorta think like the latest is the greatest--new features, bug fixes from past versions, etc. I did not know it isn't as forgiving of errors. I found that out the hard way (*fingers crossed* I found the bug).