Tkinter is a binding to the Tk GUI toolkit for Python. It is the standard Python interface to the Tk GUI toolkit,[1] and is Python's de facto standard GUI.[2] Tkinter is included with standard Linux, Microsoft Windows and macOS installs of Python.
The name Tkinter comes from Tk interface. Tkinter was written by Steen Lumholt and Guido van Rossum,[3] then later revised by Fredrik Lundh.[4]
Tkinter is free software released under a Python license.[5]
Description[edit]As with most other modern Tk bindings, Tkinter is implemented as a Python wrapper around a complete Tcl interpreter embedded in the Python interpreter. Tkinter calls are translated into Tcl commands, which are fed to this embedded interpreter, thus making it possible to mix Python and Tcl in a single application.
There are several popular GUI library alternatives ailable, such as Kivy, Pygame, Pyglet, PyGObject, PyQt, PySide, and wxPython.
Definitions[edit] Window[edit]This term has different meanings in different contexts, but in general it refers to a rectangular area somewhere on the user's display screen.
Top-level window[edit]A window which acts as a child of the primary window. It will be decorated with the standard frame and controls for the desktop manager. It can be moved around the desktop and can usually be resized.
Widget[edit]The generic term for any of the building blocks that make up an application in a graphical user interface.
Core widgets: Containers: frame labelframe toplevel paned window. Buttons: button radiobutton checkbutton (checkbox) menubutton. Text widgets: label, message text Entry widgets: scale scrollbar listbox slider spinbox entry (singleline) optionmenu text (multiline) Canvas (vector and pixel graphics)Tkinter provides three modules that allow pop-up dialogs to be displayed: tk.messagebox (confirmation, information, warning and error dialogs), tk.filedialog (single file, multiple file and directory selection dialogs) and tk.colorchooser (colour picker).
Python 2.7 and Python 3.1 incorporate the "themed Tk" ("ttk") functionality of Tk 8.5.[6][7] This allows Tk widgets to be easily themed to look like the native desktop environment in which the application is running, thereby addressing a long-standing criticism of Tk (and hence of Tkinter). Some widgets are exclusive to ttk, such as the combobox, progressbar, treeview, notebook, separator and sizegrip.[8]
Frame[edit]In Tkinter, the Frame widget is the basic unit of organization for complex layouts. A frame is a rectangular area that can contain other widgets.
Child and parent[edit]When any widget is created, a parent–child relationship is created. For example, if you place a text label inside a frame, the frame is the parent of the label.
Minimal application[edit]Below is a minimal Python 3 Tkinter application with one widget:[9]
#!/usr/bin/env python3 from tkinter import * root = Tk() # Create the root (base) window w = Label(root, text="Hello, world!") # Create a label with words w.pack() # Put the label into the window root.mainloop() # Start the event loopFor Python 2, the only difference is the word "tkinter" in the import command will be capitalized to "Tkinter".[10]
Process[edit]There are four stages to creating a widget[11]
Create create it within a frame Configure change the widget's attributes. Pack pack it into position so it becomes visible. Developers also he the option to use .grid() (row=int, column=int to define rows and columns to position the widget, defaults to 0) and .place() (relx=int or decimal, rely=int or decimal, define coordinates in the frame, or window). Bind bind it to a function or event.These are often compressed, and the order can vary.
Simple application[edit]Using the object-oriented paradigm in Python, a simple program would be (requires Tcl version 8.6, which is not used by Python on MacOS by default):
#!/usr/bin/env python3 import tkinter as tk class Application(tk.Frame): def __init__(self, root=None): tk.Frame.__init__(self, root) self.grid() self.createWidgets() def createWidgets(self): self.medialLabel = tk.Label(self, text="Hello World") self.medialLabel.config(bg="#00ffff") self.medialLabel.grid() self.quitButton = tk.Button(self, text="Quit", command=self.quit) self.quitButton.grid() app = Application() app.root = tk.Tk() app.root.title("Sample application") app.mainloop() line 1: Hashbang directive to the program launcher, allowing the selection of an appropriate interpreter executable, when self-executing.[12] line 2: Imports the tkinter module into your program's namespace, but renames it as tk. line 5: The application class inherits from Tkinter's Frame class. line 7: Defines the function that sets up the Frame. line 8: Calls the constructor for the parent class, Frame. line 12: Defining the widgets. line 13: Creates a label, named MedialLabel with the text "Hello World". line 14: Sets the MedialLabel background colour to cyan. line 15: Places the label on the application so it is visible using the grid geometry manager method. line 16: Creates a button labeled “Quit”. line 17: Places the button on the application. Grid, place and pack are all methods of making the widget visible. line 20: The main program starts here by instantiating the Application class. line 21: Creates main window app.root as a Tk object. line 22: This method call sets the title of the window to “Sample application”. line 23: Starts the application's main loop, waiting for mouse and keyboard events. See also[edit] IDLE — integrated development environment in Python, written exclusively using Tkinter References[edit] ^ "Tkinter — Python interface to Tcl/Tk — Python v2.6.1 documentation". Retrieved 2009-03-12. ^ "Tkinter - Pythoninfo Wiki". ^ tkinter—Python interface to Tcl/Tk—Python 3.9.10 Documentation ^ Shipman, John W. (2010-12-12), Tkinter reference: a GUI for Python, New Mexico Tech Computer Center, retrieved 2012-01-11 ^ "Tkinter - Tkinter Wiki". Archived from the original on 2013-11-13. Retrieved 2013-11-13. ^ "Python issue #2983, "Ttk support for Tkinter"". ^ "Python subversion revision 69051, which resolves issue #2983 by adding the ttk module". ^ "Tkinter ttk widgets - Python Tutorial". CodersLegacy. Retrieved 2022-01-13. ^ "Tkinter 8.5 reference: a GUI for Python". ^ Fleck, Dan. "Tkinter – GUIs in Python" (PDF). CS112. George Mason University. Retrieved 18 August 2018. ^ Klein, Bernd. "GUI Programming with Python: Events and Binds". www.python-course.eu. Retrieved 18 August 2018. ^ "PEP 397 — Python launcher for Windows — Python.org". Retrieved 2017-06-07. External links[edit] TkInter, Python Wiki Tkinter GUI Tutorial, covers each widget individually. TkDocs: includes language-neutral and Python-specific information and a tutorial John Shipman, Tkinter 8.5 reference: a GUI for Python Ferg, Stephen, Thinking in Tkinter vteList of widget toolkitsLow-level platform-specificOn AmigaOS Intuition On Classic Mac OS, macOS Macintosh Toolbox Carbon On Windows Windows API UWP WinRT On Unix Xlib XCB Wayland On BeOS, Haiku BeOS API On AndroidCLI Xamarin.Android Low Level Cross-platformCLI OpenTK C GDK Simple DirectMedia Layer Ja JOGL LWJGL High-level, platform-specificOn AmigaOS BOOPSI MUI ReAction GUI Zune On Classic Mac OS, macOSObject Pascal MacApp Objective-C, Swift Cocoa Cocoa Touch C++ MacApp PowerPlant THINK C CLI Xamarin.Mac Xamarin.iOS On WindowsCLI Windows Forms XAML Windows Presentation Foundation Windows UI Library Silverlight Microsoft XNA C++ MFC Active Template Library Windows Template Library Object Windows Library Object Pascal Visual Component Library On Unix and X11 Athena (Xaw) LessTif Motif OLIT XForms XView High-level, cross-platformC Enlightenment Foundation Libraries GTK IUP XForms XVT C++ Bedrock CEGUI Component Library for Cross Platform FLTK FOX toolkit OpenGL User Interface Library gtkmm JUCE Qt Rogue We Views TnFOX U++ Wt wxWidgets Simple and Fast Multimedia Library Objective-C GNUstep CLI Gtk# Tao Framework OpenTK UIML MonoGame Moonlight Xamarin.Forms .NET MAUI Adobe Flash Apache Flex MXML Go Fyne Haskell wxHaskell Ja Abstract Window Toolkit FXML JaFX Qt Jambi Swing Standard Widget Toolkit Google Web Toolkit Lightweight User Interface Toolkit JaScript Dojo Toolkit Echo Ext JS Google Closure Tools jQuery UI OpenUI5 Qooxdoo YUI Common Lisp CAPI CLIM Common Graphics Lua IUP Pascal Lazarus Component Library Object Pascal Component Library for Cross Platform fpGUI IP Pascal FireMonkey Perl Perl/Tk wxPerl PHP PHP-GTK wxPHP Python Tkinter Kivy PySide PyQt PyGTK wxPython Ruby Shoes QtRuby Tcl Tcl/Tk XML GladeXML Lively Kernel Extensible Application Markup Language XUL Wt shell Newt CDK Dialog Dart Flutter