Create First GUI Application using Python-Tkinter

We are now stepping into making applications with graphical elements, we will learn how to
make cool apps and focus more on its GUI(Graphical User Interface) using Tkinter.
What is Tkinter?
Tkinter is a Python Package for creating GUI applications. Python has a lot of GUI
frameworks, but Tkinter is the only framework that’s built into the Python standard library.
Tkinter has several strengths; it’s cross-platform, so the same code works on Windows,
macOS, and Linux.
Tkinter is lightweight and relatively painless to use compared to other frameworks. This
makes it a compelling choice for building GUI applications in Python, especially for
applications where a modern shine is unnecessary, and the top priority is to build something
functional and cross-platform quickly.
Use Cases of Tkinter
1. Creating windows and dialog boxes: Tkinter can be used to create windows and dialog
boxes that allow users to interact with your program. These can be used to display
information, gather input, or present options to the user.
To create a window or dialog box, you can use the Tk() function to create a root window, and
then use functions like Label, Button, and Entry to add widgets to the window.
2. Building a GUI for a desktop application: Tkinter can be used to create the interface for
a desktop application, including buttons, menus, and other interactive elements.
To build a GUI for a desktop application, you can use functions like Menu, Checkbutton, and
RadioButton to create menus and interactive elements and use layout managers like pack and
grid to arrange the widgets on the window.
3. Adding a GUI to a command-line program: Tkinter can be used to add a GUI to a
command-line program, making it easier for users to interact with the program and input
arguments.
To add a GUI to a command-line program, you can use functions like Entry and Button to
create input fields and buttons, and use event handlers like command and bind to handle user
input.
4. Creating custom widgets: Tkinter includes a variety of built-in widgets, such as buttons,
labels, and text boxes, but it also allows you to create your own custom widgets.
To create a custom widget, you can define a class that inherits from the Widget class and
overrides its methods to define the behavior and appearance of the widget.
5. Prototyping a GUI: Tkinter can be used to quickly prototype a GUI, allowing you to test
and iterate on different design ideas before committing to a final implementation.
To prototype a GUI with Tkinter, you can use the Tk() function to create a root window, and
then use functions like Label, Button, and Entry to add widgets to the window and test
different layouts and design ideas.
Tkinter Alternatives
There are several libraries that are similar to Tkinter and can be used for creating graphical
user interfaces (GUIs) in Python. Some examples include:
1. PyQt: PyQt is a GUI library that allows you to create GUI applications using the Qt
framework. It is a comprehensive library with a large number of widgets and features.
2. wxPython: wxPython is a library that allows you to create GUI applications using the
wxWidgets framework. It includes a wide range of widgets in it’s GUI toolkit and is
cross-platform, meaning it can run on multiple operating systems.
3. PyGTK: PyGTK is a GUI library that allows you to create GUI applications using the
GTK+ framework. It is a cross-platform library with a wide range of widgets and
features.
4. Kivy: Kivy is a library that allows you to create GUI applications using a modern,
responsive design. It is particularly well-suited for building mobile apps and games.
5. PyForms: PyForms is a library that allows you to create GUI applications using a
simple, declarative syntax. It is designed to be easy to use and has a small footprint.
6. Pygame: PyForms is a library that is popular because you can develop video games
using it. It is a free, open source, and cross-platform wrapper for the Simple
DirectMedia Library (SDL). You can check Pygame Tutorial if you are interested in
video game development.
In summary, there are several libraries available for creating GUI applications in Python,
each with its own set of features and capabilities. Tkinter is a popular choice, but you may
want to consider other options depending on your specific needs and requirements.
To understand Tkinter better, we will create a simple GUI.
Getting Started with Tkinter
1. Import tkinter package and all of its modules.
2. Create a root window. Give the root window a title(using title()) and dimension(using
geometry()). All other widgets will be inside the root window.
3. Use mainloop() to call the endless loop of the window. If you forget to call this nothing
will appear to the user. The window will wait for any user interaction till we close it.
# Import Module
from tkinter import *

# create root window

root = Tk()

# root window title and dimension

root.title("Welcome to GeekForGeeks")
# Set geometry (widthxheight)
root.geometry('350x200')

# all widgets will be here

# Execute Tkinter
root.mainloop()
Output

Root Window
4. We’ll add a label using the Label Class and change its text configuration as desired. The
grid() function is a geometry manager which keeps the label in the desired location inside the
window. If no parameters are mentioned by default it will place it in the empty cell; that is 0,0
as that is the first location.
# Import Module
from tkinter import *

# create root window

root = Tk()

# root window title and dimension

root.title("Welcome to GeekForGeeks")
# Set geometry(widthxheight)
root.geometry('350x200')

#adding a label to the root window

lbl = Label(root, text = "Are you a Geek?")
lbl.grid()

# Execute Tkinter
root.mainloop()
Output

Label inside root window

5. Now add a button to the root window. Changing the button configurations gives us a lot of
options. In this example we will make the button display a text once it is clicked and also
change the color of the text inside the button.
# Import Module
from tkinter import *

# create root window

root = Tk()

# root window title and dimension

root.title("Welcome to GeekForGeeks")
# Set geometry(widthxheight)
root.geometry('350x200')

# adding a label to the root window

lbl = Label(root, text = "Are you a Geek?")
lbl.grid()

# function to display text when

# button is clicked
def clicked():
lbl.configure(text = "I just got clicked")

# button widget with red color text

# inside
btn = Button(root, text = "Click me" ,
fg = "red", command=clicked)
# set Button grid
btn.grid(column=1, row=0)

# Execute Tkinter
root.mainloop()

Output:
Button added

After clicking “Click me”

6. Using the Entry() class we will create a text box for user input. To display the user input
text, we’ll make changes to the function clicked(). We can get the user entered text using the
get() function. When the Button after entering of the text, a default text concatenated with
the user text. Also change button grid location to column 2 as Entry() will be column 1.
# Import Module
from tkinter import *

# create root window

root = Tk()

# root window title and dimension

root.title("Welcome to GeekForGeeks")
# Set geometry(widthxheight)
root.geometry('350x200')
# adding a label to the root window
lbl = Label(root, text = "Are you a Geek?")
lbl.grid()

# adding Entry Field

txt = Entry(root, width=10)
txt.grid(column =1, row =0)

# function to display user text when

# button is clicked
def clicked():

res = "You wrote" + txt.get()

lbl.configure(text = res)

# button widget with red color text inside

btn = Button(root, text = "Click me" ,
fg = "red", command=clicked)
# Set Button Grid
btn.grid(column=2, row=0)

# Execute Tkinter
root.mainloop()
Output:
Entry Widget at column 2 row 0

Displaying user input text.

7. To add a menu bar, you can use Menu class. First, we create a menu, then we add our first
label, and finally, we assign the menu to our window. We can add menu items under any
menu by using add_cascade().
# Import Module
from tkinter import *

# create root window

root = Tk()

# root window title and dimension

root.title("Welcome to GeekForGeeks")
# Set geometry(widthxheight)
root.geometry('350x200')

# adding menu bar in root window

# new item in menu bar labelled as 'New'
# adding more items in the menu bar
menu = Menu(root)
item = Menu(menu)
item.add_command(label='New')
menu.add_cascade(label='File', menu=item)
root.config(menu=menu)

# adding a label to the root window

lbl = Label(root, text = "Are you a Geek?")
lbl.grid()

# adding Entry Field

txt = Entry(root, width=10)
txt.grid(column =1, row =0)

# function to display user text when

# button is clicked
def clicked():

res = "You wrote" + txt.get()

lbl.configure(text = res)

# button widget with red color text inside

btn = Button(root, text = "Click me" ,
fg = "red", command=clicked)
# Set Button Grid
btn.grid(column=2, row=0)
# Execute Tkinter
root.mainloop()
Output
This simple GUI covers the basics of Tkinter package. Similarly, you can add more widgets
and change their configurations as desired.
Tkinter Widgets
Tkinter is the GUI library of Python, it provides various controls, such as buttons, labels and
text boxes used in a GUI application. These controls are commonly called Widgets. The list
of commonly used Widgets are mentioned below –

Widget Description

The Label widget is used to provide

Label a single-line caption for other
widgets. It can also contain images.

The Button widget is used to

Button
display buttons in your application.

The Entry widget is used to display

Entry a single-line text field for accepting
values from a user.

The Menu widget is used to provide

various commands to a user. These
Menu
commands are contained inside
Menubutton.

The Canvas widget is used to draw

shapes, such as lines, ovals,
Canvas
polygons and rectangles, in your
application.

The Checkbutton widget is used to

display a number of options as
Checkbutton
checkboxes. The user can select
multiple options at a time.

The Frame widget is used as a

Frame container widget to organize other
widgets.

Listbox The Listbox widget is used to

Widget Description

provide a list of options to a user.

The Menubutton widget is used to

Menubutton
display menus in your application.

The Message widget is used to

Message display multiline text fields for
accepting values from a user.

The Radiobutton widget is used to

display a number of options as radio
Radiobutton
buttons. The user can select only
one option at a time.

The Scale widget is used to provide

Scale
a slider widget.

The Scrollbar widget is used to add

Scrollbar scrolling capability to various
widgets, such as list boxes.

The Text widget is used to display

Text
text in multiple lines.

The Toplevel widget is used to

Toplevel provide a separate window
container.

A labelframe is a simple container

widget. Its primary purpose is to act
LabelFrame
as a spacer or container for complex
window layouts.

This module is used to display

tkMessageBox
message boxes in your applications.

The Spinbox widget is a variant of

the standard Tkinter Entry widget,
Spinbox
which can be used to select from a
fixed number of values.

A PanedWindow is a container
widget that may contain any number
PanedWindow
of panes, arranged horizontally or
vertically.

Geometry Management
All Tkinter widgets have access to specific geometry management methods, which have the
purpose of organizing widgets throughout the parent widget area. Tkinter exposes the
following geometry manager classes: pack, grid, and place. Their description is mentioned
below –

S No. Widget Description

This geometry manager

organizes widgets in blocks
1 pack()
before placing them in the
parent widget.

This geometry manager

organizes widgets in a table-
2 grid()
like structure in the parent
widget.

This geometry manager

organizes widgets by placing
3 place()
them in a specific position in
the parent widget.

In this article, we have learned about GUI programming in Python and how to make GUI
in Python. GUI is a very demanded skill so you must know how to develop GUI using
Python. Hope this article helped you in creating GUI using Python.
Python - Databases and SQL

The Python programming language has powerful features for database programming. Python
supports various databases like SQLite, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, PostgreSQL, etc. Python
also supports Data Definition Language (DDL), Data Manipulation Language (DML) and
Data Query Statements. The Python standard for database interfaces is the Python DB-API.
Most Python database interfaces adhere to this standard.
Here is the list of available Python database interfaces: Python Database Interfaces and APIs.
You must download a separate DB API module for each database you need to access.
In this chapter we will see the use of SQLite database in python programming language. It is
done by using python’s inbuilt, sqlite3 module. You should first create a connection object
that represents the database and then create some cursor objects to execute SQL statements.
Connect To Database
Following Python code shows how to connect to an existing database. If the database does
not exist, then it will be created and finally a database object will be returned.
#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect('test.db')

print "Opened database successfully";

Here, you can also supply database name as the special name :memory: to create a database
in RAM. Now, let's run the above program to create our database test.db in the current
directory. You can change your path as per your requirement. Keep the above code in
sqlite.py file and execute it as shown below. If the database is successfully created, then it
will display the following message.
$chmod +x sqlite.py
$./sqlite.py
Open database successfully

Create a Table
Following Python program will be used to create a table in the previously created database.
#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect('test.db')
print "Opened database successfully";

conn.execute('''CREATE TABLE COMPANY

(ID INT PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
NAME TEXT NOT NULL,
 AGE INT NOT NULL,
ADDRESS CHAR(50),
SALARY REAL);''')
print "Table created successfully";

conn.close()
When the above program is executed, it will create the COMPANY table in your test.db and
it will display the following messages −
Opened database successfully
Table created successfully

Insert Operation
Following Python program shows how to create records in the COMPANY table created in
the above example.
#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect('test.db')
print "Opened database successfully";

conn.execute("INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) \

VALUES (1, 'Paul', 32, 'California', 20000.00 )");

conn.execute("INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) \

VALUES (2, 'Allen', 25, 'Texas', 15000.00 )");

conn.execute("INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) \

VALUES (3, 'Teddy', 23, 'Norway', 20000.00 )");
conn.execute("INSERT INTO COMPANY (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY) \
VALUES (4, 'Mark', 25, 'Rich-Mond ', 65000.00 )");

conn.commit()
print "Records created successfully";
conn.close()
When the above program is executed, it will create the given records in the COMPANY table
and it will display the following two lines −
Opened database successfully
Records created successfully

Select Operation
Following Python program shows how to fetch and display records from the COMPANY
table created in the above example.
#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect('test.db')
print "Opened database successfully";

cursor = conn.execute("SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY")

for row in cursor:
print "ID = ", row[0]
print "NAME = ", row[1]
print "ADDRESS = ", row[2]
print "SALARY = ", row[3], "\n"

print "Operation done successfully";

conn.close()
When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.
Opened database successfully
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000.0

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

Update Operation
Following Python code shows how to use UPDATE statement to update any record and then
fetch and display the updated records from the COMPANY table.
#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3
conn = sqlite3.connect('test.db')
print "Opened database successfully";

conn.execute("UPDATE COMPANY set SALARY = 25000.00 where ID = 1")

conn.commit
print "Total number of rows updated :", conn.total_changes

cursor = conn.execute("SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY")

for row in cursor:
print "ID = ", row[0]
print "NAME = ", row[1]
print "ADDRESS = ", row[2]
print "SALARY = ", row[3], "\n"

print "Operation done successfully";

conn.close()
When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.
Opened database successfully
Total number of rows updated : 1
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 25000.0

ID = 2
NAME = Allen
ADDRESS = Texas
SALARY = 15000.0
ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully

Delete Operation
Following Python code shows how to use DELETE statement to delete any record and then
fetch and display the remaining records from the COMPANY table.
#!/usr/bin/python

import sqlite3

conn = sqlite3.connect('test.db')
print "Opened database successfully";

conn.execute("DELETE from COMPANY where ID = 2;")

conn.commit()
print "Total number of rows deleted :", conn.total_changes

cursor = conn.execute("SELECT id, name, address, salary from COMPANY")

for row in cursor:
print "ID = ", row[0]
 print "NAME = ", row[1]
print "ADDRESS = ", row[2]
print "SALARY = ", row[3], "\n"

print "Operation done successfully";

conn.close()
When the above program is executed, it will produce the following result.
Opened database successfully
Total number of rows deleted : 1
ID = 1
NAME = Paul
ADDRESS = California
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 3
NAME = Teddy
ADDRESS = Norway
SALARY = 20000.0

ID = 4
NAME = Mark
ADDRESS = Rich-Mond
SALARY = 65000.0

Operation done successfully