Easy GUI app with Tkinter Text

Introduction

Create a simple GUI app that looks like a "text editor" using Python's Tkinter. We have incorporated a Text Widget and a Scrollbar to make it a class for easy reuse.

Complete image

It's a simple "text editor" style app.

Commentary

import

First import to use Tkinter, Python's standard GUI library, and a file dialog.

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog

Text frame class

Create a text frame class with a scrollbar. The class is derived from the Frame to create text, vertical scrollbars and sidescroll bars and place them in the base frame using the grid.

class SbTextFrame(tk.Frame):
    def __init__(self,master):
        super().__init__(master)
        text = tk.Text(self,wrap='none',undo=True)
        x_sb = tk.Scrollbar(self,orient='horizontal')
        y_sb = tk.Scrollbar(self,orient='vertical')
        x_sb.config(command=text.xview)
        y_sb.config(command=text.yview)
        text.config(xscrollcommand=x_sb.set,yscrollcommand=y_sb.set)
        text.grid(column=0,row=0,sticky='nsew')
        x_sb.grid(column=0,row=1,sticky='ew')
        y_sb.grid(column=1,row=0,sticky='ns')
        self.columnconfigure(0,weight=1)
        self.rowconfigure(0,weight=1)
        self.text = text
        self.x_sb = x_sb
        self.y_sb = y_sb

Application window

Omit fileopen () and filesave () and jump to the explanation of main (). At the beginning of main (), create an application window and set the title and window size.

def main():
    root = tk.Tk()
    root.title('editor')
    root.geometry('400x300')

Text placement

Then create a text frame with scrollbars and place it all over the application window. By setting ʻexpand = True`, the size of the text frame will change according to the window size.

    textframe = SbTextFrame(root)
    textframe.pack(side='top',fill='both',expand=True)

Menu creation

Create a file menu and place it in the menu bar of the application window.

    menubar = tk.Menu(root)
    filemenu = tk.Menu(menubar,tearoff=0)
    filemenu.add_command(label='Open',command=fileopen)
    filemenu.add_command(label='Save',command=filesave)
    filemenu.add_command(label='Exit',command=exit)
    menubar.add_cascade(label='File',menu=filemenu)
    root.config(menu=menubar)

Whole source code

The whole source code is as follows.

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog

class SbTextFrame(tk.Frame):
    def __init__(self,master):
        super().__init__(master)
        text = tk.Text(self,wrap='none',undo=True)
        x_sb = tk.Scrollbar(self,orient='horizontal')
        y_sb = tk.Scrollbar(self,orient='vertical')
        x_sb.config(command=text.xview)
        y_sb.config(command=text.yview)
        text.config(xscrollcommand=x_sb.set,yscrollcommand=y_sb.set)
        text.grid(column=0,row=0,sticky='nsew')
        x_sb.grid(column=0,row=1,sticky='ew')
        y_sb.grid(column=1,row=0,sticky='ns')
        self.columnconfigure(0,weight=1)
        self.rowconfigure(0,weight=1)
        self.text = text
        self.x_sb = x_sb
        self.y_sb = y_sb

def fileopen():
    global fname,textframe,root
    fname = filedialog.askopenfilename()
    f = open(fname,'r')
    lines = f.readlines()
    f.close()
    textframe.text.delete('1.0','end')
    for line in lines:
        textframe.text.insert('end',line)
    root.title('editor - '+fname)

def filesave():
    global fname,textframe
    if fname == '':
        return
    f = open(fname,'w')
    lines = textframe.text.get('1.0','end-1c')
    f.writelines(lines)
    f.close()

def main():
    global fname,textframe,root
    fname = ''
    root = tk.Tk()
    root.title('editor')
    root.geometry('400x300')
    textframe = SbTextFrame(root)
    textframe.pack(side='top',fill='both',expand=True)
    menubar = tk.Menu(root)
    filemenu = tk.Menu(menubar,tearoff=0)
    filemenu.add_command(label='Open',command=fileopen)
    filemenu.add_command(label='Save',command=filesave)
    filemenu.add_command(label='Exit',command=exit)
    menubar.add_cascade(label='File',menu=filemenu)
    root.config(menu=menubar)
    root.mainloop()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

in conclusion

This time I made a simple GUI application in Python. It was a bit annoying to add vertical and horizontal scrollbars to the text widget, so I tried to make it a class so that it can be reused in the future. I think it's useful when creating an app that makes heavy use of text widgets with vertical and horizontal scroll bars.