[Tkinter-discuss] LabelFrame question: why do options change when importing from tkFileDialog?

[Lynn Oliver]

While I was chasing this down Bryan provided the correct answer.  Thanks, Bryan.  I believe I will follow your advice.

On Feb 28, 2012, at 12:47 PM, Bryan Oakley wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Lynn Oliver <raycores at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've discovered that 'bd=4' and 'font=...' both work if I import:
>> from tkFileDialog import askopenfilename, asksaveasfilename, askdirectory
>> from Tkinter import *
>> import tkFont
>> from ttk import *
>> 
>> And they both fail if I import only:
>> from Tkinter import *
>> import tkFont
>> from ttk import *
>> 
>> Can anyone explain what is going on here?
> 
> Both Tkinter and ttk define objects with the same name, such as Button
> and Label. These two widgets don't share the same set of options. When
> you do "import *", whichever one you import second "wins". Thus, in
> one file you might be getting a tk button with one set of options, and
> in another you get a ttk button with a different set, even though in
> both files you use "Button".
> 
> IMHO this is a perfect example why you should _never_ "import *".
> Instead, I wholeheartedly recommend always working like this:
> 
>    import Tkinter as tk
>    import ttk
>    ...
>    tk.Button(...)
>    ttk.Button(...)
> 
> With that, it becomes completely obvious which sort of button or label
> you are creating. Even if you don't mix tk and ttk widgets I think you
> should import this way. It makes the code more self-documenting at the
> expense of a tiny bit more typing.