Python Tk Tix GUI documentation & builder overview and tips

[abaskm at gmail.com]

Hi,

I have had issues running Tix on python 2.7.6 and 3.4.2:

More details on the issue here.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27751923/tix-widgets-installation-issue

Has anyone had similar issues with Tix?

Thanks and Happy New Year.


On Friday, March 27, 2009 5:19:42 PM UTC-4, bal... at googlemail.com wrote:
> I have recently started development for a small video conversion
> project using a GUI. After some research I decided to use Tkinter/Tix
> (Tk/Tix). The reasons are mainly:
> 
> 1. the GUI is rather simple, and
> 
> 2. the end-user is not necessarily technically inclined so I want to
> keep
>   a) required libraries as few as possible, and
>   b) installation as painless as possible.
> 
> 3. Tk/Tix is included with Python. Thus only a Python installation is
> needed. Nothing else.
> 
> 4. Tk itsself misses some rudimentary widgets like meters, multi/colum
> lists, grid and scrolled widgets. Tix provides those. Good enough for
> my little application (more advanced and more modern widgets are
> available in frameworks like Qt, Gtk, or wxWindows).
> 
> 
> Before starting I spent some effort to find
> a) relevant documentation,
> b) GUI Builders which might help me,
> c) answers to non-obvious questions.
> 
> The process took some time and effort so I want to share my findings:
> 
> a) Documentation resources
> 
> Python Docs
>         http://docs.python.org/library/tkinter.html
> Tk Commands
>         http://www.tcl.tk/man/tcl8.5/TkCmd/contents.htm
> Tix Reference
>         http://tix.sourceforge.net/man/html/contents.htm
> Tix demo application
> 	You want to extract the Tix demo application coming with the Tix
> 8.4.3 source distribution. It contains 	examples for many widgets -
> unfortunately none for multi-column HList or the Grid (see below).
> 	https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5649&package_id=5704
> 	Tix8.4.3-src.tar.gz, then look in /Tix8.4.3/Python/Demo/tix
> Thinking in Tkinter
> 	I recommend the "Individual programs online"
> 	http://www.ferg.org/thinking_in_tkinter/index.html
> 
> 
> b) GUI development tools
> 
> ActiveState GUI Builder (using grid layout)
> 	SpecTcl is the predecessor of GUI Builder (by ActivaState).
>         http://spectcl.sourceforge.net/
>         FAQ (where to get source)
>         http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/komodo-announce/3355346
> 
> PAGE v3.0 by Stewart Allen (using placer layout)
>         http://page.sourceforge.net/
> 
> There are many more for other GUI toolkits mentioned in this post:
> 	http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2004-February/250727.html
> 
> Finally I decided to use the packer layout and create the widgets
> manually. Just the simplest and quickest way for me.
> 
> 
> c) How do I ...?
> 
> How do I use all methods available in the Tix Grid?
> 
> Tix Grid with full implementation of all methods
>         http://klappnase.bubble.org/TixGrid/index.html
> 
> 
> How do I create a multi-column Tix.HList?
> 
> 	import Tkinter as Tk
> 	import Tix
> 
> 	root = Tix.Tk()
> 	# setup HList
>         hl = Tix.HList(root, columns = 5, header = True)
>         hl.header_create(0, text = "File")
>         hl.header_create(1, text = "Date")
>         hl.header_create(1, text = "Size")
> 	# create a multi-column row
> 	hl.add("row1", text = "filename.txt")
> 	hl.item_create(entry_path, 1, text = "2009-03-26 21:07:03")
> 	hl.item_create(entry_path, 2, text = "200MiB")
> 
> I haven't found out how to right-justify individual columns? Anyone?
> 
> 
> How to implement Tk GUI with multiple threads?
> 
> Usually there are two options to make threads wait for an event:
> 
>   * gui thread polling (lame)
>     see here how to use Tk.after() (actually a Tcl command) to poll
>     	http://uucode.com/texts/pylongopgui/pyguiapp.html
> 
>     see here how to imitate the Tk event loop to poll for non-Tk
> events (a socket, for example)
> 	https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=5649&package_id=5704
> 	Tix8.4.3-src.tar.gz, then look in /Tix8.4.3/Python/Demo/tix/
> tixwidgets.py, find loop()
> 
> 
>   * multithreaded with events (the option to choose)
>     Basically this uses bind and event_generate to send "Notify"
> messages to the Tk instance.
>     I suspect the following example failed due to not synchronising
> the event_generate call
>         http://coding.derkeiler.com/Archive/Python/comp.lang.python/2006-07/msg01479.html
> 
> For multithreading Python Tk GUI applications the following rules
> apply:
> 1. same thread calling Tk must do all subsequent GUI calls,
> 2. other threads may send events with send_event to the root Tk
> instance,
> 3. with threading problems you might try to synchonise access to
> event_generate(). Using event_generate() with one non-GUI thread seems
> to be safe.