Book Image

Tkinter GUI Application Development Blueprints - Second Edition

By : Bhaskar Chaudhary
Book Image

Tkinter GUI Application Development Blueprints - Second Edition

By: Bhaskar Chaudhary

Overview of this book

Tkinter is the built-in GUI package that comes with standard Python distributions. It is a cross-platform package, which means you build once and deploy everywhere. It is simple to use and intuitive in nature, making it suitable for programmers and non-programmers alike. This book will help you master the art of GUI programming. It delivers the bigger picture of GUI programming by building real-world, productive, and fun applications such as a text editor, drum machine, game of chess, audio player, drawing application, piano tutor, chat application, screen saver, port scanner, and much more. In every project, you will build on the skills acquired in the previous project and gain more expertise. You will learn to write multithreaded programs, network programs, database-driven programs, asyncio based programming and more. You will also get to know the modern best practices involved in writing GUI apps. With its rich source of sample code, you can build upon the knowledge gained with this book and use it in your own projects in the discipline of your choice.

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Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
Free Chapter
1
Meet Tkinter
Meet Tkinter
Technical requirements
Project overview
Getting started
GUI programming – the big picture
The root window – your drawing board
Widgets – the building blocks of GUI programs
The Tkinter geometry manager
Events and callbacks – adding life to programs
Handling widget-specific variables
Event unbinding and virtual events
Doing it in style
Some common root window options
Getting interactive help
Summary
QA section
Further reading
2
Making a Text Editor
Making a Text Editor
Project overview
Getting started – setting up the editor skeleton
Adding a menu and menu items
Implementing the View menu
Adding a built-in functionality
Indexing and tagging
Implementing the Select All feature
Implementing the Find Text feature
Types of Toplevel window
Working with forms and dialogs
Working with message boxes
The icons toolbar and View menu functions
Displaying line numbers
Adding the cursor information bar
Adding themes
Creating a context/pop-up menu
Summary
QA section
Further reading
3
Programmable Drum Machine
Programmable Drum Machine
Getting started
Technical requirements
Setting up the GUI in OOP
Finalizing the data structure
Creating broader visual elements
Defining getter and setter methods
The number of units and beats per unit features
Loading drum samples
Playing the drum machine
Tkinter and threading
Support for multiple beat patterns
Saving beat patterns
Working with ttk-themed widgets
Summary
QA section
Further reading
4
Game of Chess
Game of Chess
An overview of the chapter
Module requirements for this chapter
Structuring our program
Modeling the data structure
Creating a Piece class
Making the game functional
Managing user preferences
Summary
QA section
Further reading
5
Building an Audio Player
Building an Audio Player
An overview of the chapter
External library requirements
Program structure and broadview skeleton
Deciding the data structure
Creating the Player class
Adding and removing items from a playlist
Playing audio and adding audio controls
Creating a seek bar
One-time updates during audio playback
Managing continuous updates
Looping over tracks
Adding a tooltip
Summary
QA section
Further reading
6
Paint Application
Paint Application
Overview of the application
Creating a tiny framework
Setting up a broad GUI structure
Dealing with mouse events
Adding toolbar buttons
Drawing items on the canvas
Adding a color palette
Adding top bar options for draw methods
Drawing irregular lines and super shapes
Adding functionality to the remaining buttons
Adding functionality to menu items
Summary
QA section
Further reading
7
Piano Tutor
Piano Tutor
Technical requirements
A brief primer on piano terms
Building the broad GUI structure
Making the piano keyboard
Playing audio
Building the scales tutor
Building the chord finder section
Building the chord progression tutor
Building the score maker
A note on window responsiveness
Summary
QA section
Further reading
8
Fun with Canvas
Fun with Canvas
Building a screen saver
Graphing with Tkinter
Gravity simulation
Drawing fractals
Voronoi diagrams
Spring pendulum simulation
Chaos game – building triangles out of randomness
Phyllotaxy
3D graphics with Tkinter
Summary
QA section
Further reading
9
Multiple Fun Projects
Multiple Fun Projects
Technical requirements
Building a Snake game
Creating a Weather Reporter application
A simple socket demo
Building a port scanner
Building a chat application
Creating a phone book application
Using asyncio with Tkinter
Interfacing with hardware/serial communication
Summary
QA section
Further reading
10
Miscellaneous Tips
Miscellaneous Tips
Tracing Tkinter variables
Widget traversal
Validating user input
Formatting widget data
More on fonts
Redirecting the command-line output to Tkinter
The class hierarchy of Tkinter
Tips for program design
Handling cross-platform differences
Tips for program optimization
Distributing a Tkinter application
The limitations of Tkinter
Alternatives to Tkinter
Tkinter in Python 2.x
Summary
QA section
11
Other Books You May Enjoy
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Paint Application

We used the Canvas widget to define a custom widget in Chapter 5, Building an Audio Player. The Canvas widget is truly one of Tkinter's highlights. It is an incredibly powerful and flexible widget. Let's, therefore, devote most of this chapter to looking at the Canvas widget in detail.

We will now develop a paint application. The application will let the user draw freehand lines, straight lines, circles, rectangles, arcs, and other polygons. It will also let the user define new complex shapes.

In addition to exploring the Canvas widget, we will also develop a tiny GUI framework on top of the Tkinter interface. As you will see, frameworks are a great way to maximize code reuse. This makes them a powerful tool for Rapid Application Development (RAD).

Some of the key learning objectives for this chapter are as follows:

  • Master the Canvas widget API
  • Learn...
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