Tkinter GUI Application Development Blueprints

Bhaskar Chaudhary

• Editorial: Packt Publishing
• Año: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781785885099
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Informatique
• Categoría: Programmation en Python

Master GUI programming in Tkinter as you design, implement, and deliver ten real-world applications from start to finishAbout This Book• Conceptualize and build state-of-art GUI applications with Tkinter• Tackle the complexity of just about any size GUI application with a structured and scalable approach• A project-based, practical guide to get hands-on into Tkinter GUI developmentWho This Book Is ForSoftware developers, scientists, researchers, engineers, students, or programming hobbyists with basic familiarity in Python will find this book interesting and informative. People familiar with basic programming constructs in other programming language can also catch up with some brief reading on Python. No GUI programming experience is expected.What You Will Learn• Get to know the basic concepts of GUI programming, such as Tkinter top-level widgets, geometry management, event handling, using callbacks, custom styling, and dialogs• Create apps that can be scaled in size or complexity without breaking down the core• Write your own GUI framework for maximum code reuse• Build apps using both procedural and OOP styles, understanding the strengths and limitations of both styles• Learn to structure and build large GUI applications based on Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture• Build multithreaded and database-driven apps• Create apps that leverage resources from the network• Learn basics of 2D and 3D animation in GUI applications• Develop apps that can persist application data with object serialization and tools such as configparserIn DetailTkinter 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, media player, drawing application, chat application, screen saver, port scanner, and many 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 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.Style and approachAn easy-to-follow guide, full of hands-on examples of real-world GUI programs. The first chapter is a must read as it explains most of the things you need to get started with writing GUI programs with Tkinter. Each subsequent chapter is a stand-alone project that discusses some aspects of GUI programming in detail. These chapters can be read sequentially or randomly depending upon the readers experience with Python.

Tkinter GUI Application Development Blueprints

---

Table of Contents

Tkinter GUI Application Development Blueprints

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Meet Tkinter

Objectives of this chapter

Installing Python and Tkinter

Importing Tkinter

GUI programming – the big picture

The root window – your drawing board

Widgets – the building blocks of GUI programs

Some important widget features

Ways to create widgets

Getting to know the core Tkinter widgets

Adding widgets to a parent window

The Tkinter geometry manager

The pack geometry manager

The grid geometry manager

The place geometry manager

Events and callbacks – adding life to programs

Command binding

Passing arguments to callbacks

Limitations of the command option

Event binding

Event patterns

The levels of binding

Handling widget-specific variables

Event unbinding and virtual events

Doing it in style

Specifying styles

Some common root window options

Getting interactive help

Summary

2. Making a Text Editor

Objectives of the chapter

An overview of the chapter

Setting up the editor skeleton

Adding a menu and menu items

Adding menu items

Implementing the View menu

Adding a built-in functionality

Indexing and tagging

Index

Tags

Implementing the Select All feature

Implementing the Find Text feature

Types of Toplevel windows

Working with forms and dialogs

Working with message boxes

The icons toolbar and View menu functions

Displaying the line number

Adding the cursor information bar

Adding themes

Creating the context/pop-up menu

Summary

3. Programmable Drum Machine

An overview of the chapter

Module requirements for the chapter

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

Initializing pygame

Playing complete patterns

Determining the tempo of a rhythm

Tkinter and threading

Tkinter and thread safety

Support for multiple beat patterns

Saving beat patterns

Working with ttk-themed widgets

Summary

4. A Game of Chess

An overview of the chapter

Module requirements for this chapter

Structuring our program

Modeling the data structures

Convention on naming chess pieces

Convention for naming locations on the chessboard

Creating a Piece class

Displaying chess pieces on the chessboard

Defining rules for the chess pieces

Rules for the King, Queen, Rook, and Bishop

Rules for a Knight

Rules for a Pawn

The movement validation of chess pieces

Tracking all the available moves

Finding out the current position of the King

Checking whether the King is in check

Making the game functional

Getting the source and destination position

Collecting a list of the moves that need to be highlighted

Highlighting allowed moves

Pre move validation

Recording a move in the data structure

Keep game statistics

Managing user preferences

Summary

5. Building an Audio Player

An overview of the chapter

External library requirements

The pyglet module

PMW Tkinter extension

Program structure and broadview skeleton

Deciding the data structure

Creating the Player class

Adding and removing items from a playlist

Adding a single audio file

Removing the selected files from a playlist

Adding all files from a directory

Emptying the playlist

Playing audio and adding audio controls

Adding the play/stop function

Adding the pause/unpause function

Adding the mute/unmute function

Fast forward/rewind function

Adding the next track/previous track function

Adding the volume change function

Creating a seek bar

One-time updates during audio playback

Managing continuous updates

Looping over tracks

Adding a tooltip

PMW list of extensions

Widgets

Dialogs

Miscellaneous

Summary

6. Paint 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

Drawing irregular lines

Drawing super shapes

Adding functionality to the remaining buttons

Adding functionality to menu items

Summary

7. Multiple Fun Projects

Chapter objectives

Building a screen saver

Building a Snake game

Creating a Weather Reporter

A simple socket demo

Building a port scanner

Building a chat application

Creating a phone book application

Creating a new record

Reading from the database

Updating records

Deleting records

Graphing with Tkinter

3D graphics with Tkinter

Summary

8. Miscellaneous Tips

Chapter objectives

Tracing Tkinter variables

Widget traversal

Validating user input

Key validation mode demo

Focus out validation mode demo

Formatting widget data

More on fonts

Finer control over font

Building a font selector

Redirecting the command-line output to Tkinter

The class hierarchy of Tkinter

Tips for program design

The model-first policy versus the code-first policy

Separating the model from the view

Selecting the right data structure

Naming variables and methods

The Single Responsibility Principle

Loose coupling

Handling errors and exceptions

Tips for program optimization

Using filter and map

Optimize variables

Profiling your program

Other optimization tips

Distributing a Tkinter application

py2exe

py2app

PyInstaller

Other freezing tools

The limitations of Tkinter

A limited number of core widgets

Non-Python objects

No support for printing ...