(n00b) Tkinter trouble

[Jason Swails]

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 1:27 PM, Jason Swails <jason.swails at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm trying my hand at creating a Tkinter application, but not having much
> luck.  I'm trying to have my top level window be a series of buttons with
> different options on them.  Every time a button is pressed, it opens up a
> new window with options.  While that new window is open, all of the buttons
> on the original window are disabled.  However, I want all of those buttons
> to become active again once I quit my new window.  I can't seem to
> reactivate those buttons no matter what I do.
>
> This is the approach I'm trying:
>
> #!/usr/bin/env python
>
> from Tkinter import *
>
> class ActionButton(Button):
>    def __init__(self, frame, text):
>       self.frame = frame
>       Button.__init__(self, master=self.frame, text=text,
> command=self.execute)
>    def execute(self):
>       window = Toplevel()
>       new_button = ActionButton(window, '2nd level button')
>       quit_button = Button(window, text='Quit!', command=window.destroy)
>       window.buttons = [new_button, quit_button]
>       for button in window.buttons: button.pack()
>       # Deactivate buttons from containing shell
>       for button in self.frame.buttons: button.config(state=DISABLED)
>       window.mainloop()
>       for button in self.frame.buttons: button.config(state=ACTIVE)
>
>
> top = Tk()
> top_button = ActionButton(top, 'Button on top!')
> top_button.pack()
> quit_button = Button(top, text='Quit', command=top.destroy)
> quit_button.pack()
>
> top.buttons = [top_button, quit_button]
>
> top.mainloop()
>
> I'm really kind of running around in the dark here, so any advice or
> explanation is appreciated.
>

Another approach I think will work, and that I'm going to try, is to
subclass Toplevel and simply assign the higher-level frame/window as an
instance attribute.  Then, I can reactivate all of the buttons in the
destroy() method before calling the destroy() method of Toplevel on self.
Something like this:

[untested]

class MyToplevel(Toplevel):

   def __init__(self, root, **options):
      self.root = root
      Toplevel.__init__(self, options)
      for button in self.root.buttons: button.config(state=DISABLED)

   def destroy(self):
      for button in self.root.buttons: button.config(state=ACTIVE)
      Toplevel.destroy(self)

This allows me to avoid running "mainloop()" on a non-root Toplevel
instance, but links the re-activation of the buttons with the destruction
of the child window (which was the effect I was going for).  I must not
understand what mainloop() does, fully (does it only make sense to run it
on Tkinter.Tk()?)

Thanks!
Jason
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