Missing support for Emojis in tkinter

[VictorDomingos]

BPO	32863
Nosy	@ronaldoussoren, @vstinner, @ned-deily, @ezio-melotti, @serhiy-storchaka

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2018-02-18.09:44:10.281>
created_at = <Date 2018-02-17.13:42:30.250>
labels = ['OS-mac', 'type-bug', 'expert-tkinter', '3.8', '3.7', 'expert-unicode']
title = 'Missing support for Emojis in tkinter'
updated_at = <Date 2018-02-20.21:24:28.390>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/VictorDomingos'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2018-02-20.21:24:28.390>
actor = 'ronaldoussoren'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2018-02-18.09:44:10.281>
closer = 'serhiy.storchaka'
components = ['macOS', 'Tkinter', 'Unicode']
creation = <Date 2018-02-17.13:42:30.250>
creator = 'Victor Domingos'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 32863
keywords = []
message_count = 3.0
messages = ['312279', '312302', '312437']
nosy_count = 7.0
nosy_names = ['ronaldoussoren', 'vstinner', 'gpolo', 'ned.deily', 'ezio.melotti', 'serhiy.storchaka', 'Victor Domingos']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'third party'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue32863'
versions = ['Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8']

[VictorDomingos]

In the current Python 3.7.0b1, on macOS 10.12.6 Sierra (also on 10.11 El Capitan), which seems to include a newer Tcl/tk version, it still does not support a variety of UTF characters, including Emoji characters that nowadays are of very common use. A quick search on the web returns some hints that maybe Tcl/tk could be compiled with different options in order to unlock those characters:

http://wiki.tcl.tk/515
https://core.tcl.tk/tk/tktview/6c0d7aec6713ab6a7c3e12dff7f26bff4679bc9d

I am not sure if it is officially supported by now, but at least for me, as a Python and tkinter user, it would be a great improvement.

Thanks in advance,

With best regards,
Victor Domingos

My current version:

Python 3.7.0b1 (v3.7.0b1:9561d7f501, Jan 30 2018, 19:10:11)
[Clang 6.0 (clang-600.0.57)] on darwin

Sample code that fails:

import tkinter as tk
import tkinter.ttk as ttk
app = tk.Tk()
b = ttk.Button(app, text="📩")

---

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/tkinter/ttk.py", line 614, in __init__
    Widget.__init__(self, master, "ttk::button", kw)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/tkinter/ttk.py", line 559, in __init__
    tkinter.Widget.__init__(self, master, widgetname, kw=kw)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/tkinter/__init__.py", line 2293, in __init__
    (widgetName, self._w) + extra + self._options(cnf))
_tkinter.TclError: character U+1f4e9 is above the range (U+0000-U+FFFF) allowed by Tcl

[serhiy-storchaka]

AFAIK, the build with more than 16-bit characters is not well tested and not officially supported and may need patching other code. Supporting the fork of Tcl/Tk is out of the competency of the Python core development team. If you have successful experience with building and using Tcl/Tk with full Unicode support I suggest you to achieve the official status of this build and promote its distribution.

[ronaldoussoren]

The 3.7b1 64-bit installer includes a local copy of Tcl/Tk (see Mac/BuildScript/build-installer.py), which could be changed as needed. That said, I'm not advocating changing default Tcl/Tk configuration options because I don't know how well full unicode builds are supported (and if that would fix anything).

<https://core.tcl.tk/tk/info/00a27923ee26437611e1ed83f96e15b6caabcd8b\> seems to indicate that at least one emoji related issue has been fixed very recently in Tk (later than the latest Tcl/Tk release).