PyQt4 Wait in thread for user input from GUI

By default, a QThread has an event loop that can process signals and slots. In your current implementation, you have unfortunately removed this behaviour by overriding QThread.run. If you restore it, you can get the behaviour you desire.

So if you can’t override QThread.run(), how do you do threading in Qt? An alternative approach to threading is to put your code in a subclass of QObject and move that object to a standard QThread instance. You can then connect signals and slots together between the main thread and the QThread to communicate in both directions. This will allow you to implement your desired behaviour.

In the example below, I’ve started a worker thread which prints to the terminal, waits 2 seconds, prints again and then waits for user input. When the button is clicked, a second separate function in the worker thread runs, and prints to the terminal in the same pattern as the first time. Please note the order in which I use moveToThread() and connect the signals (as per this).

Code:

from PyQt4.QtCore import *
from PyQt4.QtGui import *
import time

class MyWorker(QObject):

    wait_for_input = pyqtSignal()
    done = pyqtSignal()


    @pyqtSlot()
    def firstWork(self):
        print 'doing first work'
        time.sleep(2)
        print 'first work done'
        self.wait_for_input.emit()

    @pyqtSlot()
    def secondWork(self):
        print 'doing second work'
        time.sleep(2)
        print 'second work done'
        self.done.emit()


class Window(QWidget):
    def __init__(self, parent = None):
        super(Window, self).__init__()

        self.initUi()
        self.setupThread()

    def initUi(self):
        layout = QVBoxLayout()
        self.button = QPushButton('User input')
        self.button.setEnabled(False)
        layout.addWidget(self.button)
        self.setLayout(layout)
        self.show()

    @pyqtSlot()
    def enableButton(self):
        self.button.setEnabled(True)

    @pyqtSlot()    
    def done(self):
        self.button.setEnabled(False)

    def setupThread(self):
        self.thread = QThread()
        self.worker = MyWorker()

        self.worker.moveToThread(self.thread)

        self.thread.started.connect(self.worker.firstWork)
        self.button.clicked.connect(self.worker.secondWork)
        self.worker.wait_for_input.connect(self.enableButton)
        self.worker.done.connect(self.done)

        # Start thread
        self.thread.start()    

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = QApplication([])
    w = Window()
    app.exec_()