Continuous Movement in Pygame

Question

I am trying to make a ship on the surface move continuously on screen but it only accepts one key press at a time. I have tried all solutions online and they aren't working.

import pygame

#initialize the pygame module
pygame.init()
#set the window size 
screen =  pygame.display.set_mode((1280, 720))

#change the title of the window
pygame.display.set_caption("Space Invaders")

#change the icon of the window
icon = pygame.image.load("alien.png")
pygame.display.set_icon(icon)

#add the ship to the window
shipx = 608
shipy = 620

def ship(x, y):
    ship = pygame.image.load("spaceship.png").convert()
    screen.blit(ship, (x,y))
   
running = True
while running:
    #background screen color
    screen.fill((0, 0, 0))

    #render the ship on the window
    ship(shipx,shipy)

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False
        keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
        if keys[pygame.K_LEFT]:
            shipx -= 30
        if keys[pygame.K_RIGHT]:
            shipx += 30

    pygame.display.update()

I'm still new to Pygame. How can I fix this?

Answer 1

Its a matter of Indentation. pygame.key.get_pressed() has to be done in the application loop rather than the event loop. Note, the event loop is only executed when event occurs, but the application loop is executed in every frame:

running = True
while running:
    # [...]

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False
        
    #<--| INDENTATION
    keys = pygame.key.get_pressed()
    if keys[pygame.K_LEFT]:
        shipx -= 30
    if keys[pygame.K_RIGHT]:
        shipx += 30

    # [...]