I am trying to complete a simple GUI automation program that merely opens a web page and then clicks on a specific spot on the page every 0.2 seconds until I tell it to stop. I want my code to run and have its loop run infinitely until a keybind I specify breaks the loop (or entire program). I started out with the classic, KeyboardInterrupt, which enables CTRL+C to exit a program. Here is what I thought my final code would look like:

import webbrowser, pyautogui, time
webbrowser.open('https://example.com/')
print('Press Ctrl-C to quit.')
time.sleep(5)
#pyautogui.moveTo(1061, 881)
try:while True:time.sleep(0.2)pyautogui.click(1061,881)
except KeyboardInterrupt:print('\nDone.')

Everything about the code works, except the fact that I can't exit it once the clicking loop starts. Keyboard interrupt and using CTRL-C to exit do not work at all for this script, for whatever reason.

I merely want to be able to press "escape" (or any other key) to exit the loop (or the program altogether) - just any way to make the loop exit and stop. Right now it runs ad infinitum, but I want a simple keybind macro to be able to stop/break it.

I've tried using getch to keybind the escape key to cause a break, but to no avail:

import webbrowser, pyautogui, time, msvcrt
webbrowser.open('https://example.com')
print('Press Ctrl-C to quit.')
time.sleep(5)
#pyautogui.moveTo(1061, 881)
try:while True:time.sleep(0.2)pyautogui.click(1061,881)if msvcrt.kbhit():key = ord(readch())if key == 27:break

I'm surprised it's been so hard to do this in Python. I've checked out a lot of similar problems across Stackoverflow, but with unsatisfactory answers, and none that solve my problem, unfortunately. I've been able to do things like this in simpler coding languages like AuotHotKeys with ease. I feel like I'm dancing around the solution. Any and all help would be wonderfully appreciated! Thanks in advance.

If I understood correctly, you want to be able to stop your program by pressing a key on your keyboard.

To make you create a thread that will check in background if you press the key in question.

A little example:

import threading, time
from msvcrt import getchkey = "lol"def thread1():global keylock = threading.Lock()while True:with lock:key = getch()threading.Thread(target = thread1).start() # start the background taskwhile True:time.sleep(1)if key == "the key choosen":# break the loop or quit your program

Hope its help.