Building a Python GUI Application With Tkinter (Overview)
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. Visual elements are rendered using native operating system elements, so applications built with Tkinter look like they belong on the platform where they’re run.
Although Tkinter is considered the de facto Python GUI framework, it’s not without criticism. One notable criticism is that GUIs built with Tkinter look outdated. If you want a shiny, modern interface, then Tkinter may not be what you’re looking for.
However, 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 sheen is unnecessary, and the top priority is to quickly build something that’s functional and cross-platform.
In this video course, you’ll learn how to:
- Get started with Tkinter with a Hello, World application
- Work with widgets, such as buttons and text boxes
- Control your application layout with geometry managers
- Make your applications interactive by associating button clicks with Python functions
00:00
Building a Python GUI Application with tkinter Python has a lot of GUI frameworks, but tkinter is the only framework that’s built into the Python standard library.
00:13
tkinter has several strengths. It’s cross-platform, so the same code works on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
00:23
Visual elements are rendered using native operating system elements so applications built with tkinter look like they belong on the platform where they’re run.
00:35
Although it’s considered the de facto Python GUI framework, it’s not without criticism. One notable one is that GUIs built with tkinter look outdated.
00:45
If you want a shiny modern interface, then tkinter may not be what you’re looking for, but tkinter is lightweight and relatively painless to use compared to some other frameworks.
00:56 This makes it a compelling choice for building Python GUI applications, particularly where modern sheen is unnecessary, and the top priority is to quickly build something that’s functional and cross-platform.
01:08
In this course, you’ll learn how to get started with tkinter with a “Hello World” application, work with widgets such as buttons and text boxes, control your application layout with geometry managers, and make your applications interactive.
01:24 Once you’ve mastered these skills, you’ll tie everything together by building two applications: a temperature converter and a text editor.
01:33 This course was created using Python 3.12, but everything in it should work on most recent Python versions.
01:41 So now you know what’s going to be covered. Let’s get started.
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