The ttk module provides access to the Tk themed widget set, which has been introduced in Tk 8.5. If you do not have Python compiled against Tk 8.5 you may still use this module as long as you have Tile installed, but then you will miss some features of the new Tk, like anti-aliased font rendering under X11, window transparency (on X11 you will need a composition window manager) and others.
The basic idea of ttk is to separate, to the extent possible, the code implementing a widget’s behavior from the code implementing its appearance.
See also
Basically, to start using Ttk, you have to import its module:
import ttk
But if you already have some code that does:
from Tkinter import *
You may optionally want to use:
from Tkinter import *
from ttk import *
And then several ttk widgets (Button, Checkbutton, Entry, Frame, Label, LabelFrame, Menubutton, PanedWindow, Radiobutton, Scale and Scrollbar) will automatically substitute the Tk widgets.
This has the direct benefit of using the new widgets which gives better look & feel across platforms, but you should be aware that they are not totally compatible. The main difference you will find out is that widget options such as “fg”, “bg” and others related to widget styling are no longer present in Ttk widgets, instead you will have to use ttk.Style to achieve the same (or better) styling.
See also
Ttk comes with 17 widgets, where 11 of these already existed in Tkinter: Button, Checkbutton, Entry, Frame, Label, LabelFrame, Menubutton, PanedWindow, Radiobutton, Scale and Scrollbar. The others 6 are new: Combobox, Notebook, Progressbar, Separator, Sizegrip and Treeview. And all them are subclasses of Widget.
Like it was told before, you will notice changes in look & feel as well in the styling code. To demonstrate the latter, a very simple example is shown below.
Tk code:
l1 = Tkinter.Label(text="Test", fg="black", bg="white")
l2 = Tkinter.Label(text="Test", fg="black", bg="white")
Ttk code:
style = ttk.Style()
style.configure("BW.TLabel", foreground="black", background="white")
l1 = ttk.Label(text="Test", style="BW.TLabel")
l2 = ttk.Label(text="Test", style="BW.TLabel")
For more information about TtkStyling read the Style class documentation.
ttk.Widget defines standard options and methods supported by Tk themed widgets and is not supposed to be directly instantiated.
All the ttk Widgets accepts the following options:
Option Description class Specifies the window class. The class is used when querying the option database for the window’s other options, to determine the default bindtags for the window, and to select the widget’s default layout and style. This is a read-only which may only be specified when the window is created cursor Specifies the mouse cursor to be used for the widget. If set to the empty string (the default), the cursor is inherited for the parent widget. takefocus Determines whether the window accepts the focus during keyboard traversal. 0, 1 or an empty is return. If 0 is returned, it means that the window should be skipped entirely during keyboard traversal. If 1, it means that the window should receive the input focus as long as it is viewable. And an empty string means that the traversal scripts make the decision about whether or not to focus on the window. style May be used to specify a custom widget style.
The following options are supported by widgets that are controlled by a scrollbar.
option description xscrollcommand Used to comunicate with horizontal scrollbars.
When the view in the widget’s window change, the widget will generate a Tcl command based on the scrollcommand.
Usually this option consists of the method Scrollbar.set() of some scrollbar. This will cause the scrollbar to be updated whenever the view in the window changes.
yscrollcommand Used to comunicate with vertical scrollbars. For some more information, see above.
The following options are supported by labels, buttons and other button-like widgets.
option description text Specifies a text string to be displayed inside the widget. textvariable Specifies a name whose value will be used in place of the text option resource. underline If set, specifies the index (0-based) of a character to underline in the text string. The underline character is used for mnemonic activation. image Specifies an image to display. This is a list of 1 or more elements. The first element is the default image name. The rest of the list if a sequence of statespec/value pairs as defined by Style.map(), specifying different images to use when the widget is in a particular state or a combination of states. All images in the list should have the same size. compound Specifies how to display the image relative to the text, in the case both text and images options are present. Valid values are:
- text: display text only
- image: display image only
- top, bottom, left, right: display image above, below, left of, or right of the text, respectively.
- none: the default. display the image if present, otherwise the text.
width If greater than zero, specifies how much space, in character widths, to allocate for the text label, if less than zero, specifies a minimum width. If zero or unspecified, the natural width of the text label is used.
option description state May be set to “normal” or “disabled” to control the “disabled” state bit. This is a write-only option: setting it changes the widget state, but the Widget.state() method does not affect this option.
The widget state is a bitmap of independent state flags.
flag description active The mouse cursor is over the widget and pressing a mouse button will cause some action to occur disabled Widget is disabled under program control focus Widget has keyboard focus pressed Widget is being pressed selected “On”, “true”, or “current” for things like Checkbuttons and radiobuttons background Windows and Mac have a notion of an “active” or foreground window. The background state is set for widgets in a background window, and cleared for those in the foreground window readonly Widget should not allow user modification alternate A widget-specific alternate display format invalid The widget’s value is invalid
A state specification is a sequence of state names, optionally prefixed with an exclamation point indicating that the bit is off.
Besides the methods described below, the class ttk.Widget supports the methods Tkinter.Widget.cget() and Tkinter.Widget.configure().
Returns the name of the element at position x y, or the empty string if the point does not lie within any element.
x and y are pixel coordinates relative to the widget.
Note that statespec is always expected to be a sequence.
The ttk.Combobox widget combines a text field with a pop-down list of values. This widget is a subclass of Entry.
Besides the methods inherited from Widget: Widget.cget(), Widget.configure(), Widget.identify(), Widget.instate() and Widget.state(), and the following inherited from Entry: Entry.bbox(), Entry.delete(), Entry.icursor(), Entry.index(), Entry.inset(), Entry.selection(), Entry.xview(), it has some other methods, described at ttk.Combobox.
This widget accepts the following specific options:
option description exportselection Boolean value. If set, the widget selection is linked to the Window Manager selection (which can be returned by invoking Misc.selection_get, for example). justify Specifies how the text is aligned within the widget. One of “left”, “center”, or “right”. height Specifies the height of the pop-down listbox, in rows. postcommand A script (possibly registered with Misc.register) that is called immediately before displaying the values. It may specify which values to display. state One of “normal”, “readonly”, or “disabled”. In the “readonly” state, the value may not be edited directly, and the user can only selection of the values from the dropdown list. In the “normal” state, the text field is directly editable. In the “disabled” state, no interaction is possible. textvariable Specifies a name whose value is linked to the widget value. Whenever the value associated with that name changes, the widget value is updated, and vice versa. See Tkinter.StringVar. values Specifies the list of values to display in the drop-down listbox. width Specifies an integer value indicating the desired width of the entry window, in average-size characters of the widget’s font.
The combobox widgets generates a <<ComboboxSelected>> virtual event when the user selects an element from the list of values.
Ttk Notebook widget manages a collection of windows and displays a single one at a time. Each child window is associated with a tab, which the user may select to change the currently-displayed window.
This widget accepts the following specific options:
option description height If present and greater than zero, specifies the desired height of the pane area (not including internal padding or tabs). Otherwise, the maximum height of all panes is used. padding Specifies the amount of extra space to add around the outside of the notebook. The padding is a list up to four length specifications left top right bottom. If fewer than four elements are specified, bottom defaults to top, right defaults to left, and top defaults to left. width If present and greater than zero, specified the desired width of the pane area (not including internal padding). Otherwise, the maximum width of all panes is used.
There are also specific options for tabs:
option description state Either “normal”, “disabled” or “hidden”. If “disabled”, then the tab is not selectable. If “hidden”, then the tab is not shown. sticky Specifies how the child window is positioned within the pane area. Value is a string containing zero or more of the characters “n”, “s”, “e” or “w”. Each letter refers to a side (north, south, east or west) that the child window will stick to, as per the grid() geometry manager. padding Specifies the amount of extra space to add between the notebook and this pane. Syntax is the same as for the option padding used by this widget. text Specifies a text to be displayed in the tab. image Specifies an image to display in the tab. See the option image described in Widget. compound Specifies how to display the image relative to the text, in the case both options text and image are present. See Label Options for legal values. underline Specifies the index (0-based) of a character to underline in the text string. The underlined character is used for mnemonic activation if Notebook.enable_traversal() is called.
The tab_id present in several methods of ttk.Notebook may take any of the following forms:
This widget generates a <<NotebookTabChanged>> virtual event after a new tab is selected.
Adds a new tab to the notebook.
If window is currently managed by the notebook but hidden, it is restored to its previous position.
See Tab Options for the list of available options.
Hides the tab specified by tab_id.
The tab will not be displayed, but the associated window remains managed by the notebook and its configuration remembered. Hidden tabs may be restored with the add command.
Inserts a pane at the specified position.
pos is either the string end, an integer index, or the name of a managed child. If child is already managed by the notebook, moves it to the specified position.
See Tab Options for the list of available options.
Selects the specified tab_id.
The associated child window will be displayed, and the previously-selected window (if different) is unmapped. If tab_id is omitted, returns the widget name of the currently selected pane.
Query or modify the options of the specific tab_id.
If no option is specified, returns a dictionary of the tab option values. If one option is specified, returns the value of that option. Otherwise, sets the options to the corresponding values.
Enable keyboard traversal for a toplevel window containing this notebook.
This will extend the bindings for the toplevel window containing the notebook as follows:
Multiple notebooks in a single toplevel may be enabled for traversal, including nested notebooks. However, notebook traversal only works properly if all panes have as master the notebook they are in.
The ttk.Progressbar widget shows the status of a long-running operation. It can operate in two modes: determinate mode shows the amount completed relative to the total amount of work to be done, and indeterminate mode provides an animated display to let the user know that something is happening.
This widget accepts the following specific options:
option description orient One of “horizontal” or “vertical”. Specifies the orientation of the progress bar. length Specifies the length of the long axis of the progress bar (width if horizontal, height if vertical). mode One of “determinate” or “indeterminate”. maximum A number specifying the maximum value. Defaults to 100. value The current value of the progress bar. In “determinate” mode, this represents the amount of work completed. In “indeterminate” mode, it is interpreted as modulo maximum; that is, the progress bar completes one “cycle” when its value increases by maximum. variable A name which is linked to the option value. If specified, the value of the progressbar is automatically set to the value of this name whenever the latter is modified. phase Read-only option. The widget periodically increments the value of this option whenever its value is greater than 0 and, in determinate mode, less than maximum. This option may be used by the current theme to provide additional animation effects.
Increments progressbar’s value by amount.
amount defaults to 1.0 if omitted.
The ttk.Separator widget displays a horizontal or vertical separator bar.
It has no other method besides the ones inherited from ttk.Widget.
This widget accepts the following specific option:
option description orient One of “horizontal” or “vertical”. Specifies the orientation of the separator.
The ttk.Sizegrip widget (also known as grow box) allows the user to resize the containing toplevel window by pressing and dragging the grip.
This widget has no specific options neither specific methods, besides the ones inherited from ttk.Widget.
The ttk.Treeview widget displays a hierarchical collection of items. Each item has a textual label, an optional image, and an optional list of data values. The data values are displayed in successive columns after the tree label.
The order in which data values are displayed may be controlled by setting the widget option displaycolumns. The tree widget can also display column headings. Columns may be accessed by number or symbolic names listed in the widget option columns. See Column Identifiers.
Each item is identified by an unique name. The widget will generate item IDs if they are not supplied by the caller. There is a distinguished root item, named {}. The root item itself is not displayed; its children appear at the top level of the hierarchy.
Each item also has a list of tags, which can be used to associate even bindings with individual items and control the appearance of the item.
The Treeview widget supports horizontal and vertical scrolling, according to the options described in Scrollable Widget Options and the methods Treeview.xview() and Treeview.yview().
This widget accepts the following specific option:
option description columns A list of column identifiers, specifying the number of columns and their names. displaycolumns A list of column identifiers (either symbolic or integer indices) specifying which data columns are displayed and the order in which they appear, or the string “#all”. height Specifies the number of rows which should be visible. Note: the requested width is determined from the sum of the column widths. padding Specifies the internal padding for the widget. The padding is a list of up to four length specifications. selectmode Controls how the built-in class bindings manage the selection. One of “extended”, “browse” or “none”. If set to “extended” (the default), multiple items may be selected. If “browse”, only a single item will be selected at a time. If “none”, the selection will not be changed.
Note that the application code and tag bindings can set the selection however they wish, regardless the value of this option.
show A list containing zero or more of the following values, specifying which elements of the tree to display.
- tree: display tree labels in column #0.
- headings: display the heading row.
The default is “tree headings”, i.e., show all elements.
Note: Column #0 always refer to the tree column, even if show=”tree” is not specified.
The following item options may be specified for items in the insert and item widget commands.
option description text The textual label to display for the item. image A Tk Image, displayed to the left of the label. values The list of values associated with the item.
Each item should have the same number of values as the widget option columns. If there are fewer values than columns, the remaining values are assumed empty. If there are more values than columns, the extra values are ignored.
open True/False value indicating whether the item’s children should be displayed or hidden. tags A list of tags associated with this item.
The following options may be specified on tags:
option description foreground Specifies the text foreground color. background Specifies the cell or item background color. font Specifies the font to use when drawing text. image Specifies the item image, in case the item’s image option is empty.
Column identifiers take any of the following forms:
Notes:
A data column number is an index into an item’s option values list; a display column number is the column number in the tree where the values are displayed. Tree labels are displayed in column #0. If option displaycolumns is not set, then data column n is displayed in column #n+1. Again, column #0 always refers to the tree column.
The Treeview widget generates the following virtual events.
event description <<TreeviewSelect>> Generated whenever the selection changes. <<TreeviewOpen>> Generated just before settings the focus item to open=True. <<TreeviewClose>> Generated just after setting the focus item to open=False.
The Treeview.focus() and Treeview.selection() methods can be used to determine the affected item or items.
Returns the bounding box (relative to the treeview widget’s window) of the specified item in the form (x, y, width, height).
If column is specified, returns the bounding box of that cell. If the item is not visible (i.e., if it is a descendant of a closed item or is scrolled offscreen), returns an empty string.
Returns the list of children belonging to item.
If item is not specified, returns root children.
Replaces item’s child with newchildren.
Children present in item that are not present in newchildren are detached from tree. No items in newchildren may be an ancestor of item. Note that not specifying newchildren results in detaching item‘s children.
Query or modify the options for the specified column.
If no options are specified, returns a dictionary of option/value pairs. If an option is specified with value None, returns the value of that option. Otherwise, the options are updated with the specified values.
The valid options/values are:
Returns the column name, this is a read-only option.
Specifies how the text in this column should be aligned with respect to the cell.
The minimum width of the column in pixels. The treeview widget will not make the column any smaller than the specified by this option when the widget is resized or the user drags a column.
Specifies wheter or not the column’s width should be adjusted when the widget is resized.
The width of the column in pixels.
To configure the tree column, call this with column = “#0”
Delete all specified items and all their descendants.
The root item may not be deleted.
Unlinks all of the specified items from the tree.
The items and all of their descendants are still present, and may be reinserted at another point in the tree, but will not be displayed.
The root item may not be detached.
Query or modify the heading options for the specified column.
The valid options/values are:
The text to display in the column heading.
Specifies an image to display to the right of the column heading.
Specifies how the heading text should be aligned. One of the standard Tk anchor values.
A callback to be invoked when the heading label is pressed.
To configure the tree column heading, call this with column = “#0”
Returns the data column identifier of the cell at position x.
The tree column has ID #0.
Returns one of:
| region | meaning |
|---|---|
| heading | Tree heading area. |
| separator | Space between two columns headings. |
| tree | The tree area. |
| cell | A data cell. |
Availability: Tk 8.6.
Returns the element at position x, y.
Availability: Tk 8.6.
Creates a new item and return the item identifier of the newly created item.
parent is the item ID of the parent item, or the empty string to create a new top-level item. index is an integer, or the value “end”, specifying where in the list of parent’s children to insert the new item. If index is less than or equal to zero, the new node is inserted at the beginning, if index is greater than or equal to the current number of children, it is inserted at the end. If iid is specified, it is used as the item identifier, iid must not already exist in the tree. Otherwise, a new unique identifier is generated.
See Item Options for the list of available points.
Query or modify the options for the specified item.
If no options are specified, returns a dictionary of option/value pairs. If a single option is specified with value None, returns the value of that option. Otherwise, the item’s options are updated with the specified values.
Moves item to position index in parent‘s list of children.
It is illegal to move an item under one of its descendants. If index is less than or equal to zero, item is moved to the beginning, if greater than or equal to the number of children, it is moved to the end. If item was detached it is reattached.
Ensure that item is visible.
Sets all of item‘s ancestors open option to True, and scrolls the widget if necessary so that item is within the visible portion of the tree.
Query or modify the options for the specified tagname.
If one or more option/value pairs are specified, sets the value of those options for the specified tag. If a single option is specified with value None, returns the value of that option (or the empty string if the option has not been specified for tagname). With no additional arguments, returns a dictionary of the option settings for tagname.
If item is specified, returns 1 or 0 depending on whether the specified item has the given tagname. Otherwise, returns a list of all items which have the specified tag.
Availability: Tk 8.6
Each widget in ttk is assigned a style, which specifies the set of elements making up the widget and how they are arranged, along with dynamic and default settings for element options. By default the style name is the same as the widget’s class name, but it may be overriden by the widget’s style option. If you don’t know the class name of a widget, use the method Misc.winfo_class() (somewidget.winfo_class()).
See also
This class is used to manipulate the style database.
Query or sets the default value of the specified option(s) in style.
Each key in kw is an option and each value is a string identifying the value for that option.
For example, to change every default button to be a flat button with some padding and a different background color you could do:
import ttk
import Tkinter
root = Tkinter.Tk()
ttk.Style().configure("TButton", padding=6, relief="flat",
background="#ccc")
btn = ttk.Button(text="Sample")
btn.pack()
root.mainloop()
Query or sets dynamic values of the specified option(s) in style.
Each key in kw is an option and each value should be a list or a tuple (usually) containing statespecs grouped in tuples, or list, or something else of your preference. A statespec is compound of one or more states and then a value.
An example may make it more understandable:
import Tkinter
import ttk
root = Tkinter.Tk()
style = ttk.Style()
style.map("C.TButton",
foreground=[('pressed', 'red'), ('active', 'blue')],
background=[('pressed', '!disabled', 'black'), ('active', 'white')]
)
colored_btn = ttk.Button(text="Test", style="C.TButton").pack()
root.mainloop()
There is a thing to note in this previous short example:
- The order of the (states, value) sequences for an option does matter, if you changed the order to [(‘active’, ‘blue’), (‘pressed’, ‘red’)] in the foreground option, for example, you would get a blue foreground when the widget were in active or pressed states.
Returns the value specified for option in style.
If state is specified, it is expected to be a sequence of one or more states. If the default argument is set, it is used as a fallback value in case no specification for option is found.
To check what font a Button uses by default, you would do:
import ttk
print ttk.Style().lookup("TButton", "font")
Define the widget layout for given style. If layoutspec is omitted, return the layout specification for given style.
layoutspec, if specified, is expected to be a list, or some other sequence type (excluding string), where each item should be a tuple and the first item is the layout name and the second item should have the format described described in Layouts.
To understand the format, check this example below (it is not intended to do anything useful):
import ttk
import Tkinter
root = Tkinter.Tk()
style = ttk.Style()
style.layout("TMenubutton", [
("Menubutton.background", None),
("Menubutton.button", {"children":
[("Menubutton.focus", {"children":
[("Menubutton.padding", {"children":
[("Menubutton.label", {"side": "left", "expand": 1})]
})]
})]
}),
])
mbtn = ttk.Menubutton(text='Text')
mbtn.pack()
root.mainloop()
Create a new element in the current theme of given etype which is expected to be either “image”, “from” or “vsapi”. The latter is only available in Tk 8.6a for Windows XP and Vista and is not described here.
If “image” is used, args should contain the default image name followed by statespec/value pairs (this is the imagespec), kw may have the following options:
- border=padding
padding is a list of up to four integers, specifying the left, top, right, and bottom borders, respectively.
- height=height
Specifies a minimum height for the element. If less than zero, the base image’s height is used as a default.
- padding=padding
Specifies the element’s interior padding. Defaults to border’s value if not specified.
- sticky=spec
Specifies how the image is placed within the final parcel. spec contains zero or more characters “n”, “s”, “w”, or “e”.
- width=width
Specifies a minimum width for the element. If less than zero, the base image’s width is used as a default.
But if “from” is used, then element_create() will clone an existing element. args is expected to contain a themename, which is from where the element will be cloned, and optionally an element to clone from. If this element to clone from is not specified, an empty element will be used. kw is discarded here.
Create a new theme.
It is an error if themename already exists. If parent is specified, the new theme will inherit styles, elements and layouts from the parent theme. If settings are present they are expected to have the same syntax used for theme_settings().
Temporarily sets the current theme to themename, apply specified settings and then restore the previous theme.
Each key in settings is a style and each value may contain the keys ‘configure’, ‘map’, ‘layout’ and ‘element create’ and they are expected to have the same format as specified by the methods Style.configure(), Style.map(), Style.layout() and Style.element_create() respectively.
As an example, lets change the Combobox for the default theme a bit:
import ttk
import Tkinter
root = Tkinter.Tk()
style = ttk.Style()
style.theme_settings("default", {
"TCombobox": {
"configure": {"padding": 5},
"map": {
"background": [("active", "green2"),
("!disabled", "green4")],
"fieldbackground": [("!disabled", "green3")],
"foreground": [("focus", "OliveDrab1"),
("!disabled", "OliveDrab2")]
}
}
})
combo = ttk.Combobox().pack()
root.mainloop()
A layout can be just None, if takes no options, or a dict of options specifying how to arrange the element. The layout mechanism uses a simplified version of the pack geometry manager: given an initial cavity, each element is allocated a parcel. Valid options/values are:
- side: whichside
Specifies which side of the cavity to place the the element; one of top, right, bottom or left. If omitted, the element occupies the entire cavity.
- sticky: nswe
Specifies where the element is placed inside its allocated parcel.
- unit: 0 or 1
If set to 1, causes the element and all of its descendants to be treated as a single element for the purposes of Widget.identify() et al. It’s used for things like scrollbar thumbs with grips.
- children: [sublayout... ]
Specifies a list of elements to place inside the element. Each element is a tuple (or other sequence type) where the first item is the layout name, and the other is a Layout.