tkinter.tix — Extension widgets for Tk
Source code: Lib/tkinter/tix.py
Deprecated since version 3.6: This Tk extension is unmaintained and should not be used in new code. Use tkinter.ttk
instead.
The tkinter.tix
(Tk Interface Extension) module provides an additional rich set of widgets. Although the standard Tk library has many useful widgets, they are far from complete. The tkinter.tix
library provides most of the commonly needed widgets that are missing from standard Tk: HList
, ComboBox
, Control
(a.k.a. SpinBox) and an assortment of scrollable widgets. tkinter.tix
also includes many more widgets that are generally useful in a wide range of applications: NoteBook
, FileEntry
, PanedWindow
, etc; there are more than 40 of them.
With all these new widgets, you can introduce new interaction techniques into applications, creating more useful and more intuitive user interfaces. You can design your application by choosing the most appropriate widgets to match the special needs of your application and users.
See also
- Tix Homepage
-
The home page for
Tix
. This includes links to additional documentation and downloads. - Tix Man Pages
-
On-line version of the man pages and reference material.
- Tix Programming Guide
-
On-line version of the programmer’s reference material.
- Tix Development Applications
-
Tix applications for development of Tix and Tkinter programs. Tide applications work under Tk or Tkinter, and include TixInspect, an inspector to remotely modify and debug Tix/Tk/Tkinter applications.
Using Tix
-
class tkinter.tix.Tk(screenName=None, baseName=None, className='Tix')
-
Toplevel widget of Tix which represents mostly the main window of an application. It has an associated Tcl interpreter.
Classes in the
tkinter.tix
module subclasses the classes in thetkinter
. The former imports the latter, so to usetkinter.tix
with Tkinter, all you need to do is to import one module. In general, you can just importtkinter.tix
, and replace the toplevel call totkinter.Tk
withtix.Tk
:PythonCopy Codefrom tkinter import tix from tkinter.constants import * root = tix.Tk()
To use tkinter.tix
, you must have the Tix widgets installed, usually alongside your installation of the Tk widgets. To test your installation, try the following:
from tkinter import tix root = tix.Tk() root.tk.eval('package require Tix')
Tix Widgets
Tix introduces over 40 widget classes to the tkinter
repertoire.
Basic Widgets
-
class tkinter.tix.Balloon
-
A Balloon that pops up over a widget to provide help. When the user moves the cursor inside a widget to which a Balloon widget has been bound, a small pop-up window with a descriptive message will be shown on the screen.
-
class tkinter.tix.ButtonBox
-
The ButtonBox widget creates a box of buttons, such as is commonly used for
Ok Cancel
.
-
class tkinter.tix.ComboBox
-
The ComboBox widget is similar to the combo box control in MS Windows. The user can select a choice by either typing in the entry subwidget or selecting from the listbox subwidget.
-
class tkinter.tix.Control
-
The Control widget is also known as the
SpinBox
widget. The user can adjust the value by pressing the two arrow buttons or by entering the value directly into the entry. The new value will be checked against the user-defined upper and lower limits.
-
class tkinter.tix.LabelEntry
-
The LabelEntry widget packages an entry widget and a label into one mega widget. It can be used to simplify the creation of “entry-form” type of interface.
-
class tkinter.tix.LabelFrame
-
The LabelFrame widget packages a frame widget and a label into one mega widget. To create widgets inside a LabelFrame widget, one creates the new widgets relative to the
frame
subwidget and manage them inside theframe
subwidget.
-
class tkinter.tix.Meter
-
The Meter widget can be used to show the progress of a background job which may take a long time to execute.
-
class tkinter.tix.OptionMenu
-
The OptionMenu creates a menu button of options.
-
class tkinter.tix.PopupMenu
-
The PopupMenu widget can be used as a replacement of the
tk_popup
command. The advantage of theTix
PopupMenu
widget is it requires less application code to manipulate.
-
class tkinter.tix.Select
-
The Select widget is a container of button subwidgets. It can be used to provide radio-box or check-box style of selection options for the user.
-
class tkinter.tix.StdButtonBox
-
The StdButtonBox widget is a group of standard buttons for Motif-like dialog boxes.
File Selectors
-
class tkinter.tix.DirList
-
The DirList widget displays a list view of a directory, its previous directories and its sub-directories. The user can choose one of the directories displayed in the list or change to another directory.
-
class tkinter.tix.DirTree
-
The DirTree widget displays a tree view of a directory, its previous directories and its sub-directories. The user can choose one of the directories displayed in the list or change to another directory.
-
class tkinter.tix.DirSelectDialog
-
The DirSelectDialog widget presents the directories in the file system in a dialog window. The user can use this dialog window to navigate through the file system to select the desired directory.
-
class tkinter.tix.DirSelectBox
-
The
DirSelectBox
is similar to the standard Motif(TM) directory-selection box. It is generally used for the user to choose a directory. DirSelectBox stores the directories mostly recently selected into a ComboBox widget so that they can be quickly selected again.
-
class tkinter.tix.ExFileSelectBox
-
The ExFileSelectBox widget is usually embedded in a tixExFileSelectDialog widget. It provides a convenient method for the user to select files. The style of the
ExFileSelectBox
widget is very similar to the standard file dialog on MS Windows 3.1.
-
class tkinter.tix.FileSelectBox
-
The FileSelectBox is similar to the standard Motif(TM) file-selection box. It is generally used for the user to choose a file. FileSelectBox stores the files mostly recently selected into a
ComboBox
widget so that they can be quickly selected again.
-
class tkinter.tix.FileEntry
-
The FileEntry widget can be used to input a filename. The user can type in the filename manually. Alternatively, the user can press the button widget that sits next to the entry, which will bring up a file selection dialog.
Hierarchical ListBox
-
class tkinter.tix.HList
-
The HList widget can be used to display any data that have a hierarchical structure, for example, file system directory trees. The list entries are indented and connected by branch lines according to their places in the hierarchy.
-
class tkinter.tix.CheckList
-
The CheckList widget displays a list of items to be selected by the user. CheckList acts similarly to the Tk checkbutton or radiobutton widgets, except it is capable of handling many more items than checkbuttons or radiobuttons.
-
class tkinter.tix.Tree
-
The Tree widget can be used to display hierarchical data in a tree form. The user can adjust the view of the tree by opening or closing parts of the tree.
Tabular ListBox
-
class tkinter.tix.TList
-
The TList widget can be used to display data in a tabular format. The list entries of a
TList
widget are similar to the entries in the Tk listbox widget. The main differences are (1) theTList
widget can display the list entries in a two dimensional format and (2) you can use graphical images as well as multiple colors and fonts for the list entries.
Manager Widgets
-
class tkinter.tix.PanedWindow
-
The PanedWindow widget allows the user to interactively manipulate the sizes of several panes. The panes can be arranged either vertically or horizontally. The user changes the sizes of the panes by dragging the resize handle between two panes.
-
class tkinter.tix.ListNoteBook
-
The ListNoteBook widget is very similar to the
TixNoteBook
widget: it can be used to display many windows in a limited space using a notebook metaphor. The notebook is divided into a stack of pages (windows). At one time only one of these pages can be shown. The user can navigate through these pages by choosing the name of the desired page in thehlist
subwidget.
-
class tkinter.tix.NoteBook
-
The NoteBook widget can be used to display many windows in a limited space using a notebook metaphor. The notebook is divided into a stack of pages. At one time only one of these pages can be shown. The user can navigate through these pages by choosing the visual “tabs” at the top of the NoteBook widget.
Image Types
The tkinter.tix
module adds:
-
pixmap capabilities to all
tkinter.tix
andtkinter
widgets to create color images from XPM files. -
Compound image types can be used to create images that consists of multiple horizontal lines; each line is composed of a series of items (texts, bitmaps, images or spaces) arranged from left to right. For example, a compound image can be used to display a bitmap and a text string simultaneously in a Tk
Button
widget.
Miscellaneous Widgets
-
class tkinter.tix.InputOnly
-
The InputOnly widgets are to accept inputs from the user, which can be done with the
bind
command (Unix only).
Form Geometry Manager
In addition, tkinter.tix
augments tkinter
by providing:
-
class tkinter.tix.Form
-
The Form geometry manager based on attachment rules for all Tk widgets.
Tix Commands
-
class tkinter.tix.tixCommand
-
The tix commands provide access to miscellaneous elements of
Tix
’s internal state and theTix
application context. Most of the information manipulated by these methods pertains to the application as a whole, or to a screen or display, rather than to a particular window.To view the current settings, the common usage is:
PythonCopy Codefrom tkinter import tix root = tix.Tk() print(root.tix_configure())
-
tixCommand.tix_configure(cnf=None, **kw)
-
Query or modify the configuration options of the Tix application context. If no option is specified, returns a dictionary all of the available options. If option is specified with no value, then the method returns a list describing the one named option (this list will be identical to the corresponding sublist of the value returned if no option is specified). If one or more option-value pairs are specified, then the method modifies the given option(s) to have the given value(s); in this case the method returns an empty string. Option may be any of the configuration options.
-
tixCommand.tix_cget(option)
-
Returns the current value of the configuration option given by option. Option may be any of the configuration options.
-
tixCommand.tix_getbitmap(name)
-
Locates a bitmap file of the name
name.xpm
orname
in one of the bitmap directories (see thetix_addbitmapdir()
method). By usingtix_getbitmap()
, you can avoid hard coding the pathnames of the bitmap files in your application. When successful, it returns the complete pathname of the bitmap file, prefixed with the character@
. The returned value can be used to configure thebitmap
option of the Tk and Tix widgets.
-
tixCommand.tix_addbitmapdir(directory)
-
Tix maintains a list of directories under which the
tix_getimage()
andtix_getbitmap()
methods will search for image files. The standard bitmap directory is$TIX_LIBRARY/bitmaps
. Thetix_addbitmapdir()
method adds directory into this list. By using this method, the image files of an applications can also be located using thetix_getimage()
ortix_getbitmap()
method.
-
tixCommand.tix_filedialog([dlgclass])
-
Returns the file selection dialog that may be shared among different calls from this application. This method will create a file selection dialog widget when it is called the first time. This dialog will be returned by all subsequent calls to
tix_filedialog()
. An optional dlgclass parameter can be passed as a string to specified what type of file selection dialog widget is desired. Possible options aretix
,FileSelectDialog
ortixExFileSelectDialog
.
-
tixCommand.tix_getimage(self, name)
-
Locates an image file of the name
name.xpm
,name.xbm
orname.ppm
in one of the bitmap directories (see thetix_addbitmapdir()
method above). If more than one file with the same name (but different extensions) exist, then the image type is chosen according to the depth of the X display: xbm images are chosen on monochrome displays and color images are chosen on color displays. By usingtix_getimage()
, you can avoid hard coding the pathnames of the image files in your application. When successful, this method returns the name of the newly created image, which can be used to configure theimage
option of the Tk and Tix widgets.
-
tixCommand.tix_option_get(name)
-
Gets the options maintained by the Tix scheme mechanism.
-
tixCommand.tix_resetoptions(newScheme, newFontSet[, newScmPrio])
-
Resets the scheme and fontset of the Tix application to newScheme and newFontSet, respectively. This affects only those widgets created after this call. Therefore, it is best to call the resetoptions method before the creation of any widgets in a Tix application.
The optional parameter newScmPrio can be given to reset the priority level of the Tk options set by the Tix schemes.
Because of the way Tk handles the X option database, after Tix has been has imported and inited, it is not possible to reset the color schemes and font sets using the
tix_config()
method. Instead, thetix_resetoptions()
method must be used.
License
© 2001–2021 Python Software Foundation
Licensed under the PSF License.
https://docs.python.org/3.9/library/tkinter.tix.html