Can only click on one button at a time in Python

Question

I'm quite new to Python/pygame and we've been developing a game in class.

Currently, I'm working on a basic menu screen, and I've tried to implement a music button that pauses/plays the music when pressed. The problem is that I can only click on one button, e.g. if I pause the music I can't click on the instructions or quit game buttons.

import pygame,random,time
pygame.init()

width,height = 1024,768
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((width,height))

instructionsBackground = pygame.image.load("instructions.png")
instructionsBackground = pygame.transform.scale(instructionsBackground,(width,height))
musicImage= pygame.image.load("musicIcon.png")

pygame.mixer.music.load("menuMusic.ogg")
pygame.mixer.music.play(-1)

white = [255,255,255]
black = [0,0,0]

clock = pygame.time.Clock()

def button(msg,x,y,w,h,c,action=None):
    global screen
    mouse = pygame.mouse.get_pos()
    click = pygame.mouse.get_pressed()
    if x+w > mouse[0] > x and y+h > mouse[1] > y:
        pygame.draw.rect(screen, c, (x,y,w,h))
        if click[0] == 1 and action != None:
            action()

    smallText = pygame.font.SysFont("comicsansms", 20)
    textSurf, textRect = textObjects(msg, smallText)
    textRect.center = ((x + (w/2)), (y + (h/2)))
    screen.blit(textSurf, textRect)

def textObjects(text, font):
    textSurface = font.render(text, True, black)
    return textSurface, textSurface.get_rect()    

def quitGame():
    pygame.quit()
    raise SystemExit
    quit()

def menuLoop():
    menuShowing = True
    while menuShowing == True:
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                quitGame()
            screen.fill(white)
            button("Play",        400,175,150,50, white,None)
            button("Instructions",400,225,150,50, white,instructions) 
            button("HighScores",  400,275,150,50, white,None)
            button("Quit",        400,325,150,50, white,quitGame)
            button("Music",       400,375,150,50, white,music)
            pygame.display.update()
            clock.tick(60)
        
def instructions():
    instructionsShowing = True
    while instructionsShowing == True:
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                quitGame()    
            elif event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
                if (event.pos[0] > 400 and event.pos[0] < 550) and (event.pos[1]  > 225 and event.pos[1] < 275):        
                    screen.blit(instructionsBackground,(0,0))
                    button("Go Back",25,600,150,60, white,menuLoop)
                    pygame.display.update()
                    clock.tick(60)


def music():
    music_playing = True
    running = True
    while running == True:
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                quitGame()
            elif event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
                if (event.pos[0] > 400 and event.pos[0] < 550) and (event.pos[1]  > 375 and event.pos[1] < 425):  
                    if music_playing == True: 
                        pygame.mixer.music.pause()
                        music_playing = False
                    else:
                        pygame.mixer.music.unpause()
                        music_playing = True
                
menuLoop()

I'm not that familiar with pygame but it seems wrong to me that you have a for event in pygame.event.get(): loop in multiple places. Presumably that removes the events from the queue, so you would only see a given event once inside of one of those functions. And if the event doesn't match your expected criteria for processing, it will be lost before the other functions get a chance to check it. — 0x5453
– 0x5453, Commented Mar 18, 2021 at 20:05
ah ok that makes sense, how would i work around that ? kinda new to this so a lil bamboozled lol — donkeytoadd
– donkeytoadd, Commented Mar 18, 2021 at 21:54

Heliton Martins · Accepted Answer · 2021-03-18 21:56:10Z

1

When you click the button, the program gets stuck in an infinite loop, and the GUI freezes. You have to run the long-running function in a new thread, or even process.

Using multiprocessing, you can do something like that:

import time
from multiprocessing import Process

def main():
    # Main Loop.
    # Do GUI stuff and so on.

    # To call the blocking function:
    p = Process(target=my_blocking_function, args=("Param 1",))
    p.start()

    # It'll create a new process. You can get the PID with:
    print(p.pid) # something like 16543
    
    # Now you do other stuff, let's just wait a little bit
    time.sleep(3)
    print("The main is untouched!")

    # When you're done, you can kill the subprocess:
    p.terminate()

    # The main process is still running!
    print("Hey, I'm alive!")

def my_blocking_function(argument:str):
    while True:
        time.sleep(1)
        print(f"Hey, I wanna block everything!")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Read the documentation to know the details. In general, be careful to pass a Tuple to args (so the trailing comma is needed when you need only one argument).

edited Mar 18, 2021 at 21:56

answered Mar 18, 2021 at 19:48

Heliton Martins

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2 Comments

donkeytoadd Over a year ago

Ah ok, we havent really covered that , so how would one go about implementing something like that ? Sorry for the big ask, just trying to wrap my head around it atm

Heliton Martins Over a year ago

I edited the answer to include an example. Feel free to ask more.

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