Tkinter--does anyone use it for sophisticated GUI development?

[Kevin Walzer]

I'm a Tcl/Tk developer who has been working, slowly, at learning Python,
in part because Python has better support for certain kinds of
applications that I want to develop than Tcl/Tk does. Naturally, I
thought that I would use Tkinter as the GUI for these programs. However,
in doing research into GUI development techniques, sample code, and
showcase applications, what has struck me is how little sophisticated
GUI development seems to be done in Tkinter as compared to, say,
wxPython. I've found plenty of tutorials on how to do basic GUI stuff
with Tkinter, but that stuff pretty much ends with the core Tk widgets
(buttons, entry fields, scrollbars, and menu items).

Coming from Tcl/Tk, where there are a huge number of extension packages
to enhance the Tk widgets and which allow you to make really polished
GUI's, I'm struck mainly by how little of this stuff has made it over
into Tkinter/Python. For instance, I've developed several Tcl
applications that use the core Tk widgets, the Tile theming package, the
Bwidget set (great tree widget and listbox, which allows you to embed
images), and tablelist (an extremely flexible muti-column listbox
display). I've found Python wrappers for some of this stuff, but almost
no documentation on how to use them, and very little in the way of
actual applications making use of them--which is itself a red flag. And
most of the pure-Python extension stuff that I've found, such as Python
megawidgets, is pretty dated/ugly and lags far behind the comparable
stuff on the Tcl side.

Am I better off biting the bullet and learning wxPython--a different GUI
paradigm to go with the new language I'm trying to learn? I had hoped to
reduce my learning curve, but I'm very concerned that I simply can't do
what I want to do with Tkinter. What do other Tkinter developers think?

[James Stroud]

Kevin Walzer wrote:

I'm a Tcl/Tk developer who has been working, slowly, at learning Python,
in part because Python has better support for certain kinds of
applications that I want to develop than Tcl/Tk does. Naturally, I
thought that I would use Tkinter as the GUI for these programs. However,
in doing research into GUI development techniques, sample code, and
showcase applications, what has struck me is how little sophisticated
GUI development seems to be done in Tkinter as compared to, say,
wxPython. I've found plenty of tutorials on how to do basic GUI stuff
with Tkinter, but that stuff pretty much ends with the core Tk widgets
(buttons, entry fields, scrollbars, and menu items).

Coming from Tcl/Tk, where there are a huge number of extension packages
to enhance the Tk widgets and which allow you to make really polished
GUI's, I'm struck mainly by how little of this stuff has made it over
into Tkinter/Python. For instance, I've developed several Tcl
applications that use the core Tk widgets, the Tile theming package, the
Bwidget set (great tree widget and listbox, which allows you to embed
images), and tablelist (an extremely flexible muti-column listbox
display). I've found Python wrappers for some of this stuff, but almost
no documentation on how to use them, and very little in the way of
actual applications making use of them--which is itself a red flag. And
most of the pure-Python extension stuff that I've found, such as Python
megawidgets, is pretty dated/ugly and lags far behind the comparable
stuff on the Tcl side.

Am I better off biting the bullet and learning wxPython--a different GUI
paradigm to go with the new language I'm trying to learn? I had hoped to
reduce my learning curve, but I'm very concerned that I simply can't do
what I want to do with Tkinter. What do other Tkinter developers think?

Its used in pymol. Also, look at my modest program at passerby.sf.net .
Not so sophisticated, but not completely simple either.

James
--
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/

[jmcantrell]

wxPython is much more powerful and flexible. I would suggest moving
more in that direction.

On Oct 19, 3:29 pm, Kevin Walzer <[e-mail] :

I'm a Tcl/Tk developer who has been working, slowly, at learning Python,
in part because Python has better support for certain kinds of
applications that I want to develop than Tcl/Tk does. Naturally, I
thought that I would use Tkinter as the GUI for these programs. However,
in doing research into GUI development techniques, sample code, and
showcase applications, what has struck me is how little sophisticated
GUI development seems to be done in Tkinter as compared to, say,
wxPython. I've found plenty of tutorials on how to do basic GUI stuff
with Tkinter, but that stuff pretty much ends with the core Tk widgets
(buttons, entry fields, scrollbars, and menu items).

Coming from Tcl/Tk, where there are a huge number of extension packages
to enhance the Tk widgets and which allow you to make really polished
GUI's, I'm struck mainly by how little of this stuff has made it over
into Tkinter/Python. For instance, I've developed several Tcl
applications that use the core Tk widgets, the Tile theming package, the
Bwidget set (great tree widget and listbox, which allows you to embed
images), and tablelist (an extremely flexible muti-column listbox
display). I've found Python wrappers for some of this stuff, but almost
no documentation on how to use them, and very little in the way of
actual applications making use of them--which is itself a red flag. And
most of the pure-Python extension stuff that I've found, such as Python
megawidgets, is pretty dated/ugly and lags far behind the comparable
stuff on the Tcl side.

Am I better off biting the bullet and learning wxPython--a different GUI
paradigm to go with the new language I'm trying to learn? I had hoped to
reduce my learning curve, but I'm very concerned that I simply can't do
what I want to do with Tkinter. What do other Tkinter developers think?

[Paul Rubin]

Kevin Walzer <[e-mail] s:

Am I better off biting the bullet and learning wxPython--a different GUI
paradigm to go with the new language I'm trying to learn? I had hoped to
reduce my learning curve, but I'm very concerned that I simply can't do
what I want to do with Tkinter. What do other Tkinter developers think?

I haven't yet found the need to switch to wxPython. Tkinter is
something of a least common denominator and as such it's been ok for
the stuff I've used it for. However, tkinter's unpopularity is well
grounded:

- Tk widgets have their own look, which is both non-native and IMO ugly
- limited widget set, especially the widgets included with python
- clumsy programming interface (but wxpython is also clumsy)

If you look at IDLE (the fanciest Tkinter app I've examined) the code
is near incomprehensibl e.

I have yet to see a gui toolkit which doesn't suck. I'm not sure why
that is.

Sometimes instead of a gui, I put a local http server into the app,
and connect to it with a browser. Then I do the whole gui in html.
This has many advantages and often not that much of a downside.
There's a language called Picolisp in which this is the standard way
to do a gui. Picolisp includes a java applet that can do some stuff
that standard html widgets can't. These days I suppose it should use
AJAX.

[Fredrik Lundh]

Kevin Walzer wrote:

Coming from Tcl/Tk, where there are a huge number of extension packages
to enhance the Tk widgets and which allow you to make really polished
GUI's, I'm struck mainly by how little of this stuff has made it over
into Tkinter/Python. For instance, I've developed several Tcl
applications that use the core Tk widgets, the Tile theming package, the
Bwidget set (great tree widget and listbox, which allows you to embed
images), and tablelist (an extremely flexible muti-column listbox
display). I've found Python wrappers for some of this stuff, but almost
no documentation on how to use them, and very little in the way of
actual applications making use of them--which is itself a red flag.

on the other hand, such wrappers are usually extremely simple, and the
mapping between Python and Tk is trivial. there's simply not much to
add to the existing Tk module docs.

Am I better off biting the bullet and learning wxPython--a different GUI
paradigm to go with the new language I'm trying to learn?

that's almost designed to get "wx rul3z d00d" replies from the wx crowd.
let's see if they bite.

What do other Tkinter developers think?

"Those people who have nothing better to do than post on the Internet
all day long are rarely the ones who have the most insights"

if you want to reach Tkinter developers, the following forum might be
more appropriate:

http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tkinter-discuss

that list is more focussed on solving specific problems, though; Tkinter
developers just don't seem very interested in arguments about world
domination. guess we've inherited that from the Tcl world, or maybe
we're just too busy doing stuff ;-)

</F>

[Alexander Burger]

Paul Rubin <http://ph****@nospam.i nvalidwrote:

There's a language called Picolisp in which this is the standard way
to do a gui. Picolisp includes a java applet that can do some stuff
that standard html widgets can't. These days I suppose it should use
AJAX.

Yes, in fact it does.

The currently active "testing version"

http://www.software-lab.biz/1024/?download&picoLisp.tgz

also has a plain HTML GUI, enhanced by XMLHttpRequests , in a way that it
works transparently in browsers with or without JavaScript enabled. We
are using it in all our current projects.

- Alex

[Kevin Walzer]

James Stroud wrote:

Also, look at my modest program at passerby.sf.net .
Not so sophisticated, but not completely simple either.

I did look at passerby--a nice app, and in a native Mac OS X version
also! (I'm a Mac developer.) Thanks for the pointer.

--
Kevin Walzer
Poetic Code
http://www.kevin-walzer.com

[Kevin Walzer]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:

>
on the other hand, such wrappers are usually extremely simple, and the
mapping between Python and Tk is trivial. there's simply not much to
add to the existing Tk module docs.

I think I might simply have to bite the bullet, actually use some of
these documented wrappers, perhaps even tweak/improve them, and then
release something that shows what's possible with them. And perhaps even
write up some "user-friendly" docs. :-)

>

>Am I better off biting the bullet and learning wxPython--a different GUI
paradigm to go with the new language I'm trying to learn?

that's almost designed to get "wx rul3z d00d" replies from the wx crowd.
let's see if they bite.

That certainly wasn't my intention.

>

>What do other Tkinter developers think?

"Those people who have nothing better to do than post on the Internet
all day long are rarely the ones who have the most insights"

if you want to reach Tkinter developers, the following forum might be
more appropriate:

http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tkinter-discuss

that list is more focussed on solving specific problems, though; Tkinter
developers just don't seem very interested in arguments about world
domination. guess we've inherited that from the Tcl world, or maybe
we're just too busy doing stuff ;-)

I subscribe to that list. I agree that this particular question is
off-topic for that list.

By way of clarification, one of the things I have in mind in terms of
"sophistica ted GUI's" can be found on these pages at the Tcl'ers wiki:

http://wiki.tcl.tk/13636

This page is focused on Tcl/Tk apps using the Tile extension, but many
of these apps also use extensions like Tablelist and Tktreectrl. I
haven't seen any shiny screenshots of Python apps using these extensions
yet.

Another example, that doesn't use Tile, is PgAccess:

http://www.pgaccess.org/index.php?pa...gAccessEnglish

This app makes use of BWidgets and Tablelist, in particular, to good
effect.

This gives you some idea of the target I'm aiming at, anyway.

--
Kevin Walzer
Poetic Code
http://www.kevin-walzer.com/software/

[Kevin Walzer]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:

>
on the other hand, such wrappers are usually extremely simple, and the
mapping between Python and Tk is trivial. there's simply not much to
add to the existing Tk module docs.

I think I might simply have to bite the bullet, actually use some of
these documented wrappers, perhaps even tweak/improve them, and then
release something that shows what's possible with them. And perhaps even
write up some "user-friendly" docs. :-)

>

>Am I better off biting the bullet and learning wxPython--a different GUI
paradigm to go with the new language I'm trying to learn?

that's almost designed to get "wx rul3z d00d" replies from the wx crowd.
let's see if they bite.

That certainly wasn't my intention.

>

>What do other Tkinter developers think?

"Those people who have nothing better to do than post on the Internet
all day long are rarely the ones who have the most insights"

if you want to reach Tkinter developers, the following forum might be
more appropriate:

http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tkinter-discuss

that list is more focussed on solving specific problems, though; Tkinter
developers just don't seem very interested in arguments about world
domination. guess we've inherited that from the Tcl world, or maybe
we're just too busy doing stuff ;-)

I subscribe to that list. I agree that this particular question is
off-topic for that list.

By way of clarification, one of the things I have in mind in terms of
"sophistica ted GUI's" can be found on these pages at the Tcl'ers wiki:

http://wiki.tcl.tk/13636

This page is focused on Tcl/Tk apps using the Tile extension, but many
of these apps also use extensions like Tablelist and Tktreectrl. I
haven't seen any shiny screenshots of Python apps using these extensions
yet.

Another example, that doesn't use Tile, is PgAccess:

http://www.pgaccess.org/index.php?pa...gAccessEnglish

This app makes use of BWidgets and Tablelist, in particular, to good
effect.

This gives you some idea of the target I'm aiming at, anyway.

--
Kevin Walzer
Poetic Code
http://www.kevin-walzer.com/software/

[Christophe]

Kevin Walzer a écrit :

Am I better off biting the bullet and learning wxPython--a different GUI
paradigm to go with the new language I'm trying to learn? I had hoped to
reduce my learning curve, but I'm very concerned that I simply can't do
what I want to do with Tkinter. What do other Tkinter developers think?

Nobody mentionned it, but I think you should try PyQT and PyGTK before
wxPython. Myself, I do not like wx : it looks too much like the MFC.

PyGTK is good, but GTK doesn't work that well on windows. PyQT is very
good but you need Qt4 to get a free version for Windows. And it is GPL
so it might not be what you are looking for. Or you can pay for it and
get the non GPL version.