GUI Programming in Python

Previously, we touched upon GUI in the section on what can be done with Python. For the sake of discussion, let’s revisit a few points.

GUI stands for Graphical User Interface. There is no alternative to GUI programming to simplify the tasks of a computer used by common people in daily life. For example, when we write in Microsoft Word, it has a user interface that makes it accessible to everyone. Similarly, the browser you are using to view this website has a specific interface. In this segment, we will learn how to create such user interfaces.

Python has many GUI libraries, with Tkinter being the most widely used. The best part is that it comes bundled with Python 3, so there’s no need for a separate installation.

Creating the First Window

Let’s see how to create a window. It’s very easy:

import tkinter # importing the tkinter

window = tkinter.Tk()

window.mainloop()

When you run this code, you will see an empty window like this:

Creating the first window using Tkinter in Python.

1. In the first line, we import Tkinter, which means we are telling the program that we will use this module.
2. In the third line, we create a window using the Tk() method.
3. In the fifth line, we use a loop. mainloop() is a special kind of function that keeps running indefinitely until the window is closed, making the window visible.

Tkinter Widget

Everything in Tkinter is a widget. All commonly used elements are stored as widgets. Let’s look at how to use each one of them.

button()

This widget is used to create a button in the window.

import tkinter 

window = tkinter.Tk()

btn=tkinter.Button(window,text="Click Here")
btn.pack()

window.mainloop()

When you run this code, you will see a window with a button labeled “Click Here”:

A button named “Click Here” is created in the window. However, we haven’t specified what will happen when the button is clicked, so clicking it will not produce any result. The command attribute is used to specify the action of a button click.

# This example is to work with tkinter button using python

import tkinter 

window = tkinter.Tk()

btn=tkinter.Button(window,text="Click Here",command=window.destroy)
btn.pack()

window.mainloop()

When you run this code, clicking the button will close the window because we have used the built-in method destroy() in the command attribute to close the window.

Note that the pack() method is used in the eighth line for alignment, in one word, for layout. Tkinter has three such methods for this purpose:

1. pack(): Places the widgets in a single column sequentially.
2. grid(): Converts the layout into a table-like grid and places the widgets in the grids.
3. place(): Places the widgets in a specific position.

Moreover, each widget has various properties that can be used to create new designs easily. Let’s look at the properties of a button: