Python and Tkinter Programming by John Grayson

[Ethan Furman]

Greetings!

I am hoping to acquire a book on Python and Tkinter, and found this one.
However, it was published in 2000 for Python 1.52...

Can somebody who has this book comment its continued relevance? Is it
still useful for Python 2.5 and Tk 8.4? Is it *very* useful?

Comments appreciated!

~Ethan~

 

[Peter]

Greetings!

I am hoping to acquire a book on Python and Tkinter, and found this one.
  However, it was published in 2000 for Python 1.52...

Can somebody who has this book comment its continued relevance?  Is it
still useful for Python 2.5 and Tk 8.4?  Is it *very* useful?

Comments appreciated!

~Ethan~

I have a copy - which I haven't read now for some years

But it was an excellent introduction to using Python and Tkinter and
depending on your level of experience, I would highly recommend it
even now to anybody who is just beginning to use Python and Tkinter.
In fact, I still loan it to any friends who are just starting out with
Python and want to do their first GUI.

Besides, the book is mainly about using Python with Tkinter - and
Tkinter hasn't changed that much since 2000, so I believe it is just
as relevant today as it was back then. The fact it was written back
when Python was 1.52 is probably not relevant either as it isn't a
book about learning Python (all such books quickly become 'dated'
given the speed at which Python develops) but rather producing GUIs
using Python and Tkinter - so it still does an excellent job for that
even though I have abandoned the GUI application framework that John
provides in his book (I used it once for my first GUI, but these days
use Pmw more for my GUIs).

Peter

 

[Lord Eldritch]

provides in his book (I used it once for my first GUI, but these days
use Pmw more for my GUIs).

Maybe I'm wrong, but for me, it is THE Tkinter reference. I would probably
choose another organization of the book, but I am not aware of a better,
more complete treatise about. Even this year I did a small appplication and
used it as reference.

And it even has a PMW section!

 

[Mark Roseman]

Besides, the book is mainly about using Python with Tkinter - and
Tkinter hasn't changed that much since 2000, so I believe it is just
as relevant today as it was back then.

I'd say that Tkinter has substantially changed - with the introduction
of the 'ttk' themed widgets. I cover these in my tutorial at
http://www.tkdocs.com

Mark

 

[Peter]

I'd say that Tkinter has substantially changed - with the introduction
of the 'ttk' themed widgets.  I cover these in my tutorial athttp://www..tkdocs.com

Mark

But is the ttk themed widgets a "change" to Tkinter or an "addition/
improvement"? i.e. does the themed widgets invalidate any of the
Tkinter stuff in Grayson's book? That certainly isn't my impression of
the themed widgets, I was of the impression that the themed widgets
just added some convenient widgets (such as Scale, Spinbox etc) which
a user could find in other GUI frameworks, for example, Pmw
supplemented the basic Tkinter widget set and offered some (essential
IMO) widgets that were missing in Tkinter - such as the Notebook
widget.

But I'll bow to your greater knowledge on the point on whether ttk
themed widgets are a 'change' to Tkinter.

Lets face it, if somebody wants to get up to speed on Python and GUI
development then the book is still very, very relevant and necessary
(IMO). The documentation for the themed widgets still leaves a lot to
be desired from the perspective of somebody who wants to start using
Python to create GUI applications. As Lord Eldritch reminded me in his
post, the book even has a section on Pmw - which is what I use mainly
for my GUI applications - because Tkinter was missing some vital
widgets that are now available in the ttk themed set.

Personally I will start to incorporate some of the ttk themed widgets
into my applications - but Pmw will remain the 'basis' for my GUI's as
the entire framework (IMO) supports a class oriented approach that
allows easy creation of extensible and reconfigurable (at run time)
GUI interfaces.

Ultimately Grayson does a good job of providing information and
reference to toolkit(s) that allow a beginner to quickly get up to
speed on producing a GUI using Python. It is purely up to the user
afterwards as to whether they stick with Tkinter/Pmw (and now the ttk
themed set) or venture into wxPython or Jython (as two examples of GUI
'systems' that provide 'better' facilities to a Python programmer).

Peter

 

[Kevin Walzer]

But is the ttk themed widgets a "change" to Tkinter or an "addition/
improvement"? i.e. does the themed widgets invalidate any of the
Tkinter stuff in Grayson's book? That certainly isn't my impression of
the themed widgets, I was of the impression that the themed widgets
just added some convenient widgets (such as Scale, Spinbox etc) which
a user could find in other GUI frameworks, for example, Pmw
supplemented the basic Tkinter widget set and offered some (essential
IMO) widgets that were missing in Tkinter - such as the Notebook
widget.

It's both a change and an improvement. The themed widgets can be used in
conjunction with the traditional widgets, but in many cases it's
possible (and desirable) to update your entire application to use the
themed widgets.

Lets face it, if somebody wants to get up to speed on Python and GUI
development then the book is still very, very relevant and necessary
(IMO). The documentation for the themed widgets still leaves a lot to
be desired from the perspective of somebody who wants to start using
Python to create GUI applications. As Lord Eldritch reminded me in his
post, the book even has a section on Pmw - which is what I use mainly
for my GUI applications - because Tkinter was missing some vital
widgets that are now available in the ttk themed set.

Personally I will start to incorporate some of the ttk themed widgets
into my applications - but Pmw will remain the 'basis' for my GUI's as
the entire framework (IMO) supports a class oriented approach that
allows easy creation of extensible and reconfigurable (at run time)
GUI interfaces.

PMW is certainly a helpful addition to the Tkinter developer's toolbox,
but it also has limitations. It suffers from some of the same
limitations as Tk itself, i.e. it is rather dated in appearance, and
even it lacks some modern UI features such as a good multicolumn
listbox, treeview, etc. In addition to the ttk themed widgets, other,
more configurable pure Tk-based megawidget packages exist, such as
BWidgets and Tablelist, and there are Python wrappers for these at the
Tkinter wiki (http://tkinter.unpythonic.net/wiki/).

Ultimately Grayson does a good job of providing information and
reference to toolkit(s) that allow a beginner to quickly get up to
speed on producing a GUI using Python. It is purely up to the user
afterwards as to whether they stick with Tkinter/Pmw (and now the ttk
themed set) or venture into wxPython or Jython (as two examples of GUI
'systems' that provide 'better' facilities to a Python programmer).

Another book I've found very helpful for learning Tkinter is Programming
Python by Mark Lutz--a lot of coverage there of GUI development.

--Kevin

 

[Peter]

It's both a change and an improvement. The themed widgets can be used in
conjunction with the traditional widgets, but in many cases it's
possible (and desirable) to update your entire application to use the
themed widgets.



PMW is certainly a helpful addition to the Tkinter developer's toolbox,
but it also has limitations. It suffers from some of the same
limitations as Tk itself, i.e. it is rather dated in appearance, and
even it lacks some modern UI features such as a good multicolumn
listbox, treeview, etc. In addition to the ttk themed widgets, other,
more configurable pure Tk-based megawidget packages exist, such as
BWidgets and Tablelist, and there are Python wrappers for these at the
Tkinter wiki (http://tkinter.unpythonic.net/wiki/).




Another book I've found very helpful for learning Tkinter is Programming
Python by Mark Lutz--a lot of coverage there of GUI development.

--Kevin

Another possible consideration when choosing a GUI to learn Python -
will you want to print from within your GUI application? Admittedly, I
haven't looked to see whether this situation has changed or not for
some years now, but a GUI based on Tkinter (whether it is ttk or Pmw
or whatever) has no support for "printing". Other GUI frameworks, such
as wxPython, Jython, PyQT etc have API's that allow printing of
information from within your GUI application.

Now if you go the Tk route, I am sure you can use the Win32 bindings
to do printing - but I personally could never work them out Maybe
there is some reasonable documentation or example code for doing that
these days - but there wasn't when I first approached the problem
(which was back in the python 2.1 days - ancient history!). Printing
using Windows API was a complete mystery to me.

My first GUI application required information to be printed out - I
wrote the whole thing using Pmw and Tkinter - only to find that I had
no way of getting stuff to a printer (I was learning Python and
Tkinter at the time ). I briefly explored "porting" my application
to wxPython or Jython because both frameworks provided printer API
functions - at that time, PyQT was commercial license only for a PC,
so that wasn't an option. I found wxPython stunningly hard to
understand from the documentation (I have since purchased wxPython in
Action by Rappin and Dunn but have never found the time to read it). I
had some problems porting the code to Jython (my code relied heavily
on the pickle module and Jython had some severe bugs in that area at
the time), so in the end I came up with a fairly micky-mouse system
that placed information that required printing into .txt files and the
GUI application started Microsoft Word using mail-merge templates and
I got the information to the printer that way - not ideal! But it
worked

So consider that in your decision process - maybe somebody can
(kindly ) hop in here and say "that's easy, just look at xyz or
read this book abc" to find out how to print from within an
application using Tkinter.

Regards
Peter

 

[Ethan Furman]

Another possible consideration when choosing a GUI to learn Python -
will you want to print from within your GUI application?

Excellent point.

Many thanks to all who responded, especially for the reminder of the gui
sections in Programming Python (forgot I had that book!). I'll start by
going over that again, and we'll see how confident I feel afterwards.

~Ethan~

 

[Pradeep B]

Excellent point.

Many thanks to all who responded, especially for the reminder of the gui
sections in Programming Python (forgot I had that book!).  I'll start by
going over that again, and we'll see how confident I feel afterwards.  

~Ethan~

Is printing from GUI still a 'not-happening' thing with Tkinter ? I
have just started learning it.



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[Kevin Walzer]

Is printing from GUI still a 'not-happening' thing with Tkinter ? I
have just started learning it.

Tkinter doesn't wrap native printing API's. There are a few extensions
that do it, but they are platform specific and not complete.

The usual ways of printing are like this:

1. If you're outputting data from the text widget, write that to a
temporary text file and print via lpr.

2. If you're outputting data from the canvas, write that to a temporary
postscript file and print via lpr.

This is on Unix/MacOS. Not sure what the equivalent API on Windows is.

--Kevin

 

[Pradeep B]

Tkinter doesn't wrap native printing API's. There are a few extensions that
do it, but they are platform specific and not complete.

The usual ways of printing are like this:

1. If you're outputting data from the text widget, write that to a temporary
text file and print via lpr.

2. If you're outputting data from the canvas, write that to a temporary
postscript file and print via lpr.

This is on Unix/MacOS. Not sure what the equivalent API on Windows is.

--Kevin

Thanx Kevin.

Anybody can throw light on how to do the same in Windows ?

-pradeep


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[Arndt Roger Schneider]

Thanx Kevin.

Anybody can throw light on how to do the same in Windows ?

-pradeep

The conventional --crude-- way is to take the bitmap of a
window and to stretchDIBBitBlt it onto the printer device in windows
and osx. Native printer dialogs do exist for both platforms ...

When you do not need a printer dialog:
Convert the Tk-GUI to SVG, then wrap it into a fo-xml wrapper
--fo accepts inline SVG-- and use fop for printing.
This approach works cross-platform, albeit you need a Java
intallation (fop is a Java application).

You can use http://jeszra.sourceforge.net to generate SVG for a complete
Tk-GUI.
In addition. there is a python/tkinter SVG export project for the Tk canvas
--search the tkinter wiki.


-roger