Programming Python, 3rd Edition

GuiMaker: Automating Menus and Toolbars

The last section’s mixin class makes common tasks simpler, but it still doesn’t address the complexity of linking up widgets such as menus and toolbars. Of course, if we had access to a GUI layout tool that generates Python code, this would not be an issue. We’d design our widgets interactively, press a button, and fill in the callback handler blanks.

For now, a programming-based approach can work just as well. We’d like to be able to inherit something that does all the grunt work of construction for us, given a template for the menus and toolbars in a window. Here’s one way it can be done—using trees of simple objects. The class in Example 11-2 interprets data structure representations of menus and toolbars and builds all the widgets automatically.

Example 11-2. PP3E\Gui\Tools\guimaker.py

############################################################################### # An extended Frame that makes window menus and toolbars automatically. # Use GuiMakerFrameMenu for embedded components (makes frame-based menus). # Use GuiMakerWindowMenu for top-level windows (makes Tk8.0 window menus). # See the self-test code (and PyEdit) for an example layout tree format. ############################################################################### import sys from Tkinter import * # widget classes from types import * # type constants class GuiMaker(Frame): menuBar = [] # class defaults toolBar = [] # change per instance in subclasses helpButton = 1 # ...