6.5 The End of the Tutorial

In this chapter, we have learned the core concepts of Python/Tkinter programming, and met a handful of simple widget objects along the way -- labels, buttons, frames, and the packer geometry manager. We've seen enough to construct simple interfaces, but have really only scratched the surface of the Tkinter widget set.

In the next two chapters, we will apply what we've learned here to study the rest of the Tkinter library, and learn how to use it to generate the kinds of interfaces you expect to see in realistic GUI programs. As a preview and roadmap, Table 6-1 lists the kinds of widgets we'll meet there, in roughly their order of appearance. Note that this table lists only widget classes; along the way, we will also meet a few additional widget-related topics that don't appear in this table.

Table 6-1. Tkinter Widget Classes

Widget Class	Description
Label	A simple message area
Button	A simple labeled pushbutton widget
Frame	A container for attaching and arranging other widget objects
Toplevel, Tk	A new window managed by the window manager
Message	A multiline label
Entry	A simple single-line text-entry field
Checkbutton	A two-state button widget, typically used for multiple-choice selections
Radiobutton	A two-state button widget, typically used for single-choice selections
Scale	A slider widget with scalable positions
PhotoImage	An image object used for displaying full-color images on other widgets
BitmapImage	An image object used for displaying bitmap images on other widgets
Menu	A set of options associated with a Menubutton or top-level window
Menubutton	A button that opens a Menu of selectable options and submenus
Scrollbar	A control for scrolling other widgets (e.g., listbox, canvas, text)
Listbox	A list of selection names
Text	A multiline text browse/edit widget, with support for fonts, etc.
Canvas	A graphic drawing area, which supports lines, circles, photos, text, etc.

We've already met the Label, Button, and Frame in this chapter's tutorial. To make the remaining topics easier to absorb, they are split over the next two chapters: Chapter 7 covers the first widgets in this table up to but not including Menu, and Chapter 8 presents widgets lower in this table.

Besides the widget classes in this table, there are additional classes and tools in the Tkinter library, many of which we'll explore in the following two chapters as well:

Geometry management

pack, grid, place

Tkinter linked variables

StringVar, IntVar, DoubleVar, BooleanVar

Composite widgets

Dialog, ScrolledText, OptionMenu

Scheduled callbacks

Widget after, wait, and update methods

Other tools

Standard dialogs, clipboard, bind and Event, widget configuration options, custom and modal dialogs, animation techniques

Most Tkinter widgets are familiar user interface devices. Some are remarkably rich in functionality. For instance, the Text class implements a sophisticated multiline text widget that supports fonts, colors, and special effects, and is powerful enough to implement a web browser, and the Canvas class provides extensive drawing tools powerful enough for image-processing applications. Beyond this, Tkinter extensions such as PMW add even richer widgets to a GUI programmer's toolbox.