Tinkering with Tkinter

Tkinter - the Python wrapper to the Tk graphics library - has been part of the Python standard library since very early on. However, that inclusion hasn't translated into extensive use.

There was a very good reason for this. Tk's documentation was beyond awful. And if you managed to get over that hurdle, Tkinter apps looked awful - they had a woefully inadequate set of widgets, styled with the very best of mid 1990's open source graphic skill.

And then, the world got obsessed with web frameworks, and the desktop was declared as dead.

However, in the last few years, many of the reasons Tkinter was ignored have been quietly fixed. Tk 8.4 massively improved the visual appearance of Tk. tkdocs.com has emerged, addressing many of the problems with Tk documentation.

In this talk, you'll get a re-introduction to an old friend, and an explanation of why, in a web and mobile world, you should care.

Transcript

1. Tinkering with Tkinter Dr Russell Keith-Magee PyCon AU 2013
4. tkinter
5. CameronLaird calls the yearly decision to keep Tkinter "one of the minor traditions of the Python world." - Python wiki
6. What is Tkinter?
9. 2 things have changed
10. tk 8.5
11. http://tkdocs.com/
13. Step 1: A plan
14. Step 1: A plan
15. Step 2: Init tk from Tkinter import * import ttk root = Tk() root.title("Feet to Metres")
16. Step 3: Main frame mainframe = ttk.Frame(root, padding=(3, 3, 12, 12)) mainframe.grid( column=0, row=0, sticky=(N, W, E, S) ) root.columnconfigure(0, weight=1) root.rowconfigure(0, weight=1)
17. Step 4: Data Input feet = StringVar() feet_entry = ttk.Entry(mainframe, width=7, textvariable=feet) feet_entry.grid( column=1, row=0, sticky=(W, E) )
18. Step 5: Display Output metres = StringVar() ttk.Label(mainframe, textvariable=metres ).grid( column=1, row=1, sticky=(W, E) )
19. Step 6: Labels ttk.Label(mainframe, text="feet" ).grid(column=2, row=0, sticky=W) ttk.Label(mainframe, text="is equivalent to" ).grid(column=0, row=1, sticky=E) ttk.Label(mainframe, text="metres" ).grid(column=2, row=1, sticky=W)
20. Step 7: The heavy lifting def calculate(*args): try: value = float(feet.get()) metres.set(0.3048 * value) except ValueError: pass
21. Step 8: The Go Button ttk.Button(mainframe, text="Calculate", command=calculate ).grid(column=2, row=2, sticky=W) root.bind('<Return>', calculate)
22. Step 9: Let ‘er rip! for child in mainframe.winfo_children(): child.grid_configure(padx=5, pady=5) feet_entry.focus() mainframe.columnconfigure(1, weight=1) root.mainloop()
23. The result:
24. There’s a lot more • Dialogs • Menus • Lots more widgets • Extremely rich text widget • Canvas • Raw TK access if you need it.
25. Ok. So what?
26. I’ve got a theory (it might be bunnies)
30. import pdb pdb.set_trace()
32. 2013 (the dark side)
33. The cobblers children have no shoes.
34. Unix philosophy: “Do one thing, do it well”.
35. Why does that mean the UI has to suck?
36. We have the technology.
37. We have the technology. tkinter
38. Introducing...
39. Testing
40. http://bit.ly/pycricket
41. Usage pip install cricket python -m cricket.django
43. Cricket • Early days - v0.1 • Doesn’t support Python 3 • Only runs Django test suites • Supports pre1.6 and 1.6 discovery • Has a backend API • But - does one thing, very well
44. Whither the command line?
45. Questions? http://tkdocs.com http://bit.ly/pycricket http://cecinestpasun.com russell@keith-magee.com @freakboy3742