⚠️ Beta State

PyBevy is in an early and experimental stage. The API is incomplete, subject to breaking changes without notice, and you should expect bugs. Many features are still under development.

Keyboard Input

Check keyboard button state for pressed, just pressed, and just released keys.

Introduction

The ButtonInput resource tracks the current state of all keyboard keys. Use it to check if keys are held down, were just pressed this frame, or were just released.

from pybevy.prelude import *

Input System

  • pressed() — true while the key is held down
  • just_pressed() — true only on the frame the key was pressed
  • just_released() — true only on the frame the key was released
def keyboard_system(input: Res[ButtonInput]) -> None:
    if input.just_pressed(KeyCode.Space):
        print("Space was just pressed!")
 
    if input.pressed(KeyCode.ArrowLeft):
        print("Left arrow is held down")
 
    if input.just_released(KeyCode.ArrowRight):
        print("Right arrow was just released")
 
    if input.just_pressed(KeyCode.Escape):
        print("Escape pressed")

Running the App

@entrypoint
def main(app: App) -> App:
    return app.add_plugins(DefaultPlugins).add_systems(Update, keyboard_system)
 
if __name__ == "__main__":
    main().run()

Running this example

Use PyBevy's hot reload feature to run and develop this example. If you don't have PyBevy installed, check out the Quick Start guide.

$pybevy watch keyboard_input.py

The code will reload automatically when you make changes to the file.


From Python to Rust

Notice how the core concepts in the code—Commands, Assets, App, and Systems—are identical to the original Bevy example?

This is the power of pybevy! It lets you learn Bevy's powerful, data-driven architecture in friendly Python.

When your project grows and you're ready for maximum, native performance, you'll already know the concepts to start writing systems in Bevy Engine with Rust.