color propagation in tkinter

[John Posner]

Alan G Isaac wrote:
> Yes, that's what I am currently doing.
> But it seems that that is exactly the kind of thing
> we are enabled to avoid with e.g., named fonts.
> So I was hoping for an equivalent functionality
> for colors.  From your answer, I am guessing there
> is none.
Not sure this would help, but Tkinter supports the X Window System 
"resources" facility, calling it the "option database". [1]  So it's 
pretty easy to create a subclass of Tkinter.Frame whose instances get a 
user-configured background color, e.g. cyan:

  class Aframe(Frame):
      def __init__(self, master, **kwargs):
          Frame.__init__(self, master, class_="Aframe", **kwargs)
 ...
  root.option_add("*Aframe*background", "cyan")

Notes:

* The class name "Aframe" in the option_add() statement does not refer 
to the Python subclass "Aframe". Rather, it refers to the value of 
"class_=" in the __init__() method.

* The "class_=" keyword argument must appear in the call to the parent 
class's __init__() method. You can't reconfigure an existing object, 
e.g.: myobj.config(class_="Aframe").

* As far as I can tell, the "class_=" keyword argument is supported only 
by the Frame widget initializer. You cannot, for example, use this 
facility to specify the background color of a Tkinter.Label subclass. :=(

* This facility initializes a new widget, but cannot be used to 
reconfigure an existing widget. [2]

Sounds useful, huh?  :-) Anyway, here's a proof-of-concept:

from Tkinter import *

class Aframe(Frame):
    def __init__(self, master, **kwargs):
        Frame.__init__(self, master, class_="Aframe", **kwargs)

class Bframe(Frame):
    def __init__(self, master, **kwargs):
        Frame.__init__(self, master, class_="Bframe", **kwargs)

root = Tk()
root.geometry("200x300")

# set backgrounds for different classes
root.option_add("*Aframe*background", "cyan")
root.option_add("*Bframe*background", "pink")

# overall frame
panel = Frame(root)
panel.pack(padx=25, pady=20, expand=YES, fill=BOTH)

# vertical padding factor
p = 10

# created colored frames
Aframe(panel).pack(pady=p, expand=YES, fill=BOTH)
Bframe(panel).pack(pady=p, expand=YES, fill=BOTH)
Aframe(panel).pack(pady=p, expand=YES, fill=BOTH)
Aframe(panel).pack(pady=p, expand=YES, fill=BOTH)
Aframe(panel).pack(pady=p, expand=YES, fill=BOTH)
Bframe(panel, relief=GROOVE, bd=4).pack(pady=p, expand=YES, fill=BOTH)

# go
root.mainloop()

>
> This is an example where different behavior by
> StringVar could have been put to good use, I think.
I don't follow this. Would you elaborate?


[1] http://infohost.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/tkinter/option-database.html
[2] http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/tcl/option-tutorial.html says 
"Note that there is no automatic update of existing widgets when the 
database is modified. If you want this, you will need to implement it 
yourself."