[Tkinter-discuss] Tkinter aesthetic

Jeff Hobbs jeffh at ActiveState.com
Wed Mar 17 13:23:14 EST 2004


Cameron Laird wrote:
> > From tkinter-discuss-bounces at python.org Wed Mar 17 11:53:10 2004
> > 		.
> > The other day in #python at irc.freenode.net, an user told me that 
> > Tkinter under Linux is *very* ugly (he migrated to GTK+ because of 
> > this).
> 
> > Is there a plan to beautify it?
> > 		.
> Yes, no, and yes.

> ON THE OTHER HAND, this is a big issue for the Tcl/Tk folks, 
> and they've already made enormous progress > <URL: http:// 
> tcl.projectforum.com/tk/Home > (incidentally, I'm unhappy 
> with that page; by this weekend, I'll redo it to make it 
> easier to read).  One conclusion:  even if Tkinter folk do 
> nothing except track upcoming Tk releases, visuals under 
> Linux will improve a bunch over the next year.

For those who don't like the default look of Tk, the first thing
to do is tighten up the ancient defaults (which haven't changed
in much too long).  This is very easy to do, and you can try
something like the attached code here:

   http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/tcl-core/2021443

At ActiveState, we use that for all our apps.  It's Tcl code, but
you can place it on the Tcl side of the bridge easily (or convert
it to the requisite python code).  That may well be the new
defaults for Tk 8.5.  However, Tk 8.5 is getting a lot of dev
attention right now, and more widgets and themed widgets are both
high on the priority list.  These include fancy beasts like:

   http://tktreectrl.sourceforge.net/

and themeable replacements for core widgets as seen here (actually
working with Tk 8.4):

   http://tktable.sourceforge.net/tile/

I'm starting to work more actively on the Tk core in order to
improve things across the languages in 8.5.  The focus right now
is Tcl/Tk and Perl/Tk.  Tkinter is also important, it's just that
Tkinter's current state is better than Perl/Tk's current state,
FWIW.

Note that I'm not on this list, so you'll have to cc me with any
extra commentary, questions.

  Jeff Hobbs, The Tcl Guy
  http://www.ActiveState.com/, a division of Sophos




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