TKinter Manager

Need a GUI quickly? The TKinter Manager can help, reducing the amount of time you have to spend writing boilerplate code.

Installation

Clone the repo - no extra libraries needed.

Docs:

Read the docs here.

New in version 0.3

• Added menu functionality.
• Added mouse and keyboard event binding.
• Added type hinting.

Usage

To create a new TKinter Manager instance:

from tkinter_manager.tkinter_manager import TKinterManager
manager = TKinterManager(
    title="This is the title"
)

To add an element (also known as widgets in TKinter)

manager.add_element(
	element_name='category',
	element_type='dropdown',
    values=['A', 'B', 'C']
)

Types of TKinter Manager Elements

Singular Elements

Button

manager.add_element(
	element_name='start_button',
	element_type='button',
	hook_function=app.execute
)

Dropdown

manager.add_element(
	element_name='category',
	element_type='dropdown',
    values=['A', 'B', 'C']
)

Label

manager.add_element(
	element_name='message_box',
	element_type='label',
)

Progress Bar

manager.add_element(
	element_name='progress_bar',
	element_type='progress_bar',
)

Text Input

manager.add_element(
	element_name='username',
	element_type='text_input',
)

Grouped Elements

Checkboxes

manager.add_element(
	element_name='food_order',
	element_type='checkboxes',
	values=['Fish', 'Chips', 'Tomato Sauce']
)

Radio Buttons

manager.add_element(
	element_name='drinks_order',
	element_type='radio_buttons',
    values=['Tea', 'Coffee', 'Milo']
)

Adding labels

To add an element, specify the label_text argument.

manager.add_element(
	element_name='username',
	element_type='text_input',
	label_text='Enter a username:'
)

Accessing an element

To access an element, use the manager.get_element() method:

name = "notes"
manager.add_element(
	element_name=name,
	element_type='text_input'
)
name_element = manager.get_element(name)

Automatically-added labels can be accessed with the parent element name + "_label".

name = "progress_bar"
manager.add_element(
	element_name=name,
	element_type='progress_bar',
    label_text='Progress so far...'
)
progress_bar_label = manager.get_element(f"{name}_label")

Binding Shortcuts

Just like in TKinter, events can be bound globally or to certain widgets. The available events are:

• Keyboard events (AKA keyboard shortcuts)
• Mouse clicks
• Window resizing

Keyboard events
The keyboard() command takes key names or lower-case characters and returns the TKinter bind notation.

from bindings import keyboard

# returns '<Control-o>'
keyboard('Control', 'o')

# returns '<Control-Shift-f>'
keyboard('Control', 'Shift', 'f')

# returns '<Shift>'
keyboard('Shift')

Mouse events
Mouse events currently support one event - click().

Takes:

• button ['Any', 'Left', 'Right', 'Middle', 'ScrollUp', 'ScrollDown']
• on ['Start', 'End', None]
• repititions [1, 2, 3]

from bindings import click

# returns '<Any>'
click()

# returns '<Button-0>'
click('Left')

# returns '<Double-Button-1>'
click('Left', repititions=2)

# returns '<ButtonPress-1>'
click('Left', on='Start')

# returns '<Triple-Button-2>'
click('Middle', repititions=3)

# returns '<ButtonRelease-3>'
click('Right', on='End')

Window Resizing

from bindings import resized

# returns '<Configure>'
resized()

Menu

Adding a menu:
Done via the add_menu_group() method. Each row in a group config is a Tuple of (Command Name, Command Function, Shortcut).

If a menu group is added and a menu bar doesn't exist then a menu bar will automatically be created.

Any shortcut that is specified will be bound globally.

group_config = [
	('New', create_file, keyboard('Control', 'n')),
	('Open', open_file, keyboard('Control', 'o')),
	('Save', save_file, keyboard('Control', 's')),
	('About', display_about, None),
]
manager.add_menu_group(group_name='File', group_config=group_config)

Removing a menu:
manager.remove_menu()

Setting the layout

To centre all added elements, use the manager.centre_elements() method. This also makes the elements reactive when resizing the window.

manager = TKinterManager("This is the title")
manager.add_element(
	element_name='category',
	element_type='dropdown',
	label_text='Category'
    values=['A', 'B', 'C']
)
manager.add_element(
	element_name='username',
	element_type='text_input',
	label_text='Username'
)
manager.add_element(
	element_name='notes',
	element_type='text_input',
	label_text='Enter notes'
)
manager.add_element(
	element_name='start_button',
	element_type='button',
	hook_function=app.execute
)
manager.centre_elements()
manager.run()

To explicitly specify an element's place in a grid, use the manager.set_layout(layout_schema) method. The input must be a 2D array.

manager = TKinterManager("This is the title")
manager.add_element(
	element_name='category',
	element_type='dropdown',
	label_test='Category',
    values=['A', 'B', 'C']
)
manager.add_element(
	element_name='username',
	element_type='text_input',
	label_test='Username',
)
manager.add_element(
	element_name='notes',
	element_type='text_input',
	label_text='Enter notes'
)
manager.add_element(
	element_name='start_button',
	element_type='button',
	hook_function=app.execute
)
layout = [
    ["category_label", "category",],
    ["username_label", "username"],
    ["notes_label", "notes"],
    [None, "start_button"],
]
manager.set_layout(layout)
manager.run()

Element names

When naming elements, the only limitation is that each element must have a unique name. While you can name them anything, it is recommended that a snake_case naming style is used.

Full example

See the full example code to test it out.