[Tkinter-discuss] What do you feel is missing from Tkinter?

[python at bdurham.com]

Michael,

> A few other things I miss from Tkinter:
> support for image formats other than gif

We use PIL which adds about 700K to our Window distributions. My
understanding is that PIL is cross platform, available for both the 2.x
and 3.x branches of Python and both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of
Python. Are there problems deploying or using PIL for your customers?
(We're developing for Windows but hope to port to other platforms in the
future)

> The Tk-8.6 beta release however adds a -rotate option to the canvas text item and support for png images, so these issues will be resolved soon :)

Nice!! (although PIL adds many other useful image capabilities)

> built-in tooltips were also nice

I highly recommend the following tooltip library. Easily used, many
capabilities, beautifully rendered. The only limitation I've found that
needs to be addressed is that tooltips are always displayed south east
of a widget. This means that a widget aligned on the far right and/or
bottom of a user's desktop will not be visible.

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/576688/ 

There's also a simpler tooltip approach here:

http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/weblog/arch_d7_2006_07_01.shtml

> a decent html widget

Have you looked at Tkhtml? 
http://www.hwaci.com/sw/tkhtml/

Quote: Tkhtml is a Tcl/Tk widget that displays HTML. Tkhtml is
implemented in C. It is a true widget, not a metawidget implemented
using the Text or Canvas widgets of the Tcl/Tk core. Tkhtml can be used
with Tcl/Tk8.0 or later. The shared libraries use the new stubs
mechanism, so you should be able to load Tkhtml with any version of
"wish" beginning with 8.0.6. (Not sure what any of this really
means<g>).

Python wrapper
http://tix.sourceforge.net/Tixapps/src/Python/TkHtml.py

Its on my todo-list to take a look at this component. Would be curious
to hear if anyone is using this widget with Python (especially a Windows
based version of Python).

> If you don't need a themed one, you can use the Pmw.ScrolledFrame or the Tix.ScrolledWidget, which is included in the standard library and even easier to use than its Pmw counterpart

Thanks for the Tix example. Works well, but now that we're using ttk, it
does look a bit dated. I guess we're spoiled ;)

Malcolm