How do you make a PyQt5 QTreeview node editable in code?

Question

I have a question.

I'm using PyQt5 and Python 3.6, and I'm looking to use a QTreeview for listing files in a folder. When a user right-clicks a file in the folder, I'll have a context menu. One of the options will be Rename. If the user clicks that, I want the file to be selected and then the file's name highlighted, like Windows does when you do this in File Explorer.

Windows File Rename

I'm pretty sure I've figured out how I want to approach the menu itself and the other functions (Delete, Open, etc.) And I'm fairly certain I'll be able to use a slot/signal to capture the new name and change it in the file system. But I'm COMPLETELY stumped on how to do this selection and highlighting programmatically. Again, this will be done via a context menu function. I've spent HOURS now scouring the Internet and Qt documentation trying to figure this out. I admit I have gotten pretty lost in the documentation on this one.

I've seen where you can use a QTreeview's currentIndex() to get the QModelIndex object of the currently selected item, but digging through the QModelIndex documentation, I haven't found anything about editing or highlighting items. I know there are flags. I see them in examples of models. I don't see what you're supposed to do with them.

Does QTreeview support this functionality? I've also looked at QTreewidget, but it doesn't seem like it has the features I need to display files as nodes file system style.

Thanks for any help.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23305320/pyqt-how-can-you-make-a-qtreeview-uneditable-but-also-selectable — Maxwell77, Jul 14 '18 at 20:50
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48121711/drag-and-drop-within-pyqt5-treeview/48122565#48122565 — S. Nick, Jul 14 '18 at 21:10

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 15 '18 at 05:54

What you have to do is the following:

disable the ReadOnly property of the QFileSystemModel.
Disable QTreeView triggers
Get the QModelIndex associated with the click position using indexAt()
Enable editing through the edit() method of the QTreeView.

In the example I show how to enable the context menu in the first column.

from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtWidgets


class FileSystemView(QtWidgets.QTreeView):
    def __init__(self, parent=None):
        super(FileSystemView, self).__init__(parent)

        self.model = QtWidgets.QFileSystemModel()
        self.model.setRootPath(QtCore.QDir.homePath())
        self.setModel(self.model)
        self.setRootIndex(self.model.index(QtCore.QDir.homePath()))
        self.model.setReadOnly(False)
        self.setAnimated(False)
        self.setSortingEnabled(True)
        self.setEditTriggers(QtWidgets.QTreeView.NoEditTriggers)
        self.setContextMenuPolicy(QtCore.Qt.CustomContextMenu)
        self.customContextMenuRequested.connect(self.showContextMenu)


    def showContextMenu(self, point):
        ix = self.indexAt(point)
        if ix.column() == 0:
            menu = QtWidgets.QMenu()
            menu.addAction("Rename")
            action = menu.exec_(self.mapToGlobal(point))
            if action:
                if action.text() == "Rename":
                    self.edit(ix)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys

    app =QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
    w = FileSystemView()
    w.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

YES! That TOTALLY works! Thank you so much. I tried to upvote, but I don't have the reputation. Alas. I was finding QTreeview VERY VERY hard to understand, and I have been thinking I need to make a custom widget here based on QTreeview. Thank you, too, for confirming that for me. I think that has been a huge missing piece in my understanding of this particular widget. I was separating the model from the widget itself. This approach is very integrated and very intuitive to me as a programmer. I now have a pretty clear idea of how I'll approach implementing both the widget and the context menu! — , Jul 19 '18 at 19:07
I also want to point out that I did not see the edit method in the [QTreeview](https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtreeview.html) documentation. That might have allowed me to avoid posting a question in the first place. — , Jul 19 '18 at 19:27
Sorry, forgot about the checkmark! I don't do Stack often, mostly when we get kinda desperate after hours or days of searching. I'll review the tour! Thanks again. — , Jul 20 '18 at 16:53

How do you make a PyQt5 QTreeview node editable in code?

1 Answers1