Problem (or even bug?) with Tkinter

[Matt Hammond]

Here's a strange one in Tkinter that has me stumped:
(I'm running python 2.4 on Suse Linux 9.3 64bit)

I'm trying to make a set of Entry widgets with Label widgets to the left
of each one, using the grid layout. If I make and grid the Label *before*
the Entry then the Entry widget doesn't seem to work - it lets me put the
cursor in it, but I can't type! See example code below.

Is this just me doing something really really silly, or is there a bug
here?

I'm inclined to think the latter. I've been developing with python 2.4 on
Suse Linux 9.3 64bit. I've just tested it on a Win2k machine witih python
2.3 and can type into both Entry widgets.

regards


Matt
-------

#!/usr/bin/env python

import Tkinter

class ProblemGUI(object):

def __init__(self):
super(ProblemGUI, self).__init__()
self.window = Tkinter.Tk()

self.window.title("Try typing into both Entry widgets")

# declare and grid Entry widget before Label widget
self.entry1 = Tkinter.Entry(self.window)
self.entry1.grid(row=0, column=1)

self.label1 = Tkinter.Label(self.window, text="CAN WRITE ->")
self.label1.grid(row=0,column=0)

# declare and grid Label widget before Entry widget
self.label2 = Tkinter.Label(self.window, text="CAN'T WRITE ->")
self.label2.grid(row=1,column=0)

self.entry2 = Tkinter.Entry(self.window)
self.entry2.grid(row=1, column=1)


x=ProblemGUI()
x.window.mainloop()

 

[Eric Brunel]

Here's a strange one in Tkinter that has me stumped:
(I'm running python 2.4 on Suse Linux 9.3 64bit)

I'm trying to make a set of Entry widgets with Label widgets to the left
of each one, using the grid layout. If I make and grid the Label *before*
the Entry then the Entry widget doesn't seem to work - it lets me put the
cursor in it, but I can't type! See example code below.

Is this just me doing something really really silly, or is there a bug
here?

I tested with Python 2.1 on Mandrake Linux 8.0 and it works fine. My tcl/tk version is 8.3.4

Do you know the tcl/tk version you have? If you don't, you can get it via:

from Tkinter import Tk()
root = Tk()
root.tk.eval('puts $tk_patchLevel')

I suspect a bug at tcl level. So can you execute the following tcl script:

-------
entry .en1
grid .en1 -row 0 -column 1

label .lb1 -text "CAN WRITE ->"
grid .lb1 -row 0 -column 0


label .lb2 -text "CAN'T WRITE ->"
grid .lb2 -row 1 -column 0

entry .en2
grid .en2 -row 1 -column 1
-------

It is exactly the same as yours in tcl syntax. To execute it, just save it to the file script.tcl and type in a shell:
wish script.tcl

(The "wish" command may include a version number, such as "wish8.4")

If the script above shows the same behaviour as your Python script, then it's not Tkinter's fault, but tk's. You should then report the bug to comp.lang.tcl.

HTH

 

[Matt Hammond]

Thanks for that. I've tested your script and it seems to have the same
problem, so I'll post your example across in comp.lang.tcl as you suggest.

Seems I'm running tcl/tk 8.4.9, and wish 8.4

cheers


Matt

 

[Matt Hammond]

A fix for this has just been pointed out to me (by Reinhard Max):

<quote>
I've seen problems with non-working entry and text widgets on SUSE Linux
when Tk is used with the SCIM input manager. Could you please check
whether the XMODIFIERS variable exists in the environment of your Tk
process? If exists and has the value "@im=SCIM", you could try as
aworkaround to set it to "@im=local", or just unset it before starting Tk.
If that fixes your problem, and you don't otherwise make use of SCIM, you
can just deinstall the scim package.

Unfortunately I haven't yet found a way to make Tk cooperate better with
SCIM. As a workaround for SUSE Linux 10.0 I might just unset XMODIFIERS
during Tk's startup, so that at least typing ASCII will work.
</quote>

Altering the XMODIFIERS environment variable as he suggested solved the
problem.