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Do frames in Tkinter contain local grid systems?

Very simple question that I cannot find the answer to on Stack Exchange. (Only this misleading thread: Python3 Tkinter: Grids Within Grids? Frames Alongside Other Frames? which sadly does not answer the question).
I am using tkinter with Python to attempt a program with a GUI. Unfortunately, I completely do not understand the grid system.
I was under the impression that each frame contains its own grid system, where 0,0 is the top-left of that frame.
I created this code:
root = Tk()
main_frame = Frame(root, width='1520', height='1080', bg='#a1a1a1').grid(row=0, column=1)
side_frame = Frame(root, width='400', height='1080', bg='#757575').grid(row=0, column=0)
header_label = Label(main_frame, text='Heading', font=('Agency', 48), bg='#a1a1a1', fg='#ffffff').grid(row=0, column=0)
And hoped that because the label is set to (0,0) in the main frame, that the label would appear in the main frame. However, it didn't. I find that a bit odd and upsetting. Below is a picture of what is instead happening - the header label is appearing in the 'side_frame'.
Faulty layout picture
Could someone please explain to me how the grid system works? I wasn't really having trouble until I tried to add a scrollbar to the main_frame - I then realised that there's some serious awkwardness embedded within tkinter and I'd like to properly understand it.
Thanks!

The problem is that you're setting main_frame and side_frame to None, so passing that as the parent for any other widget will make that widget a child of the root widget.
That is because in python x=y().z() sets the value of x to z(). Thus, when you do main_frame = Frame(...).grid(...) sets main_frame to the result of .grid(...), and grid always returns None.
You should separate widget creation from widget layout, and this is one of the reasons why. The other big reason is that it makes the code easier to read and visualize.
main_frame = Frame(root, width='1520', height='1080', bg='#a1a1a1')
side_frame = Frame(root, width='400', height='1080', bg='#757575')
main_frame.grid(row=0, column=1)
side_frame.grid(row=0, column=0)

Python Tkinter grid functions ignored

I feel like I am missing something stupidly obvious here - surely the widgets should just be positioned along the top of the root window, but they completely ignore the .grid() function.
When I printed the grid_size(), it returned (0,0). Why?!
Any help greatly appreciated :)
title = tk.Label(root, text="Enter a city below")
title.grid(row=0, column=0)
title.pack()
e = tk.Entry(root)
e.grid(row = 0, column = 1)
e.pack()
current_clicker = ttk.Button(root, text = "Current forecast", command=current)
current_clicker.grid(row=0, column=2)
current_clicker.pack()
hourly_clicker = ttk.Button(root, text = "By hour", command=hourly)
hourly_clicker.grid(row=0, column=3)
hourly_clicker.pack()
minute_clicker = ttk.Button(root, text = "By minute", command=minute)
minute_clicker.grid(row=0, column=4)
minute_clicker.pack()
daily_clicker = ttk.Button(root, text = "Daily", command=daily)
daily_clicker.grid(row=0, column=5)
print(daily_clicker.grid_size())
daily_clicker.pack()

I believe all you have to do is remove either pack() or grid(..) method. It is not recommended to mix pack() and grid(), as it might erase the effect of the other and lead to such errors.
I recommend to get rid of pack() as grid(...) is a more orderly way of managing widgets, compared to pack().
Tiny example:
hourly_clicker = ttk.Button(root, text = "By hour", command=hourly)
hourly_clicker.grid(row=0, column=3)
minute_clicker = ttk.Button(root, text = "By minute", command=minute)
minute_clicker.grid(row=0, column=4)
Hope it solved your doubts, if any more errors, do let me know
Cheers

Only one geometry manager can manage a widget at a time. So exactly like the title of the question is saying, when you call .pack() after calling .grid(...), the effects of grid(...) are ignored.
For any given widget, you must only use one, and you need to be consistent with all widgets that have the same parent.

pack, grid and place are the 3 methods available for placing a widget. tkinter refers to these as "geometry managers". Each of these provides a unique way to position and scale widgets.
pack will dock your widget to a defined or available edge
grid behaves like a table
place allows you to define an arbitrary position (and size)
An individual widget cannot have more than one geometry manager attached to it, and parents cannot contain widgets that alternate between pack and grid. This means (for example), if you have a Frame full of widgets that use pack, none of those widgets can use grid, and vise-versa. place is not subject to this limitation and can be used anywhere.

Can't understand pack and grid geometry with tkinter

Hi I didn't really understand how furas made the below code work. Why didn't he get an error message about grid and pack on the same root when he added a box? In the addbox function he sets a frame to the root which is pack already and even uses the pack inside the function and then uses the grid.
Can someone please explain to me how this "magic" works?
a link to the his answer:
Creating new entry boxes with button Tkinter
from Tkinter import *
#------------------------------------
def addBox():
print "ADD"
frame = Frame(root)
frame.pack()
Label(frame, text='From').grid(row=0, column=0)
ent1 = Entry(frame)
ent1.grid(row=1, column=0)
Label(frame, text='To').grid(row=0, column=1)
ent2 = Entry(frame)
ent2.grid(row=1, column=1)
all_entries.append( (ent1, ent2) )
#------------------------------------
def showEntries():
for number, (ent1, ent2) in enumerate(all_entries):
print number, ent1.get(), ent2.get()
#------------------------------------
all_entries = []
root = Tk()
showButton = Button(root, text='Show all text', command=showEntries)
showButton.pack()
Thanks

There's no magic, it's just working as designed. The code uses pack in the root window, and uses grid inside a frame. Each widget that acts as a container for other widgets can use either grid or pack. You just can't use both grid and pack together for widgets that have the same master.

not really an answer but I think you will be helped by the link.
tkinter and it's layout is indeed a bit hard to understand.
I never understood how to deal with it until I stumbled over this presentation which explained the layout particulars in a way where I finally could get the hang of it.
Just putting it out there for others to find as well.
tkinter tutorial by beazley

I think you miss out on what pack and grid actually are. Consider such code:
import tkinter as tk
root = tk.Tk()
myFrame = tk.Frame(root)
myFrame.pack()
myButton1 = tk.Button(myFrame, text='This is button 1')
myButton2 = tk.Button(myFrame, text='This is button 2')
myButton1.grid(row=0, column=0)
myButton2.grid(row=1, column=0)
root.mainloop()
By creating root we create a new window. In this window we will put everything else. Then we create myFrame. Note, that the actual "thing" (in more adequate terms - widget) is created in line myFrame = tk.Frame(root). Note, that we have to specify where we are going to put this widget in brackets and we've written that it is going to be root - our main window. Blank frame probably isn't the best example since you can not see it being placed (not unless you use some more specifications at least), but still. We have created it, but not placed it in our user interface. The we use .pack() to place it. Now you refer to widgets as being used as packs or grids. That is not true though. Pack and grid are just the set of rules, on which the widgets are being placed inside some kind of window. Because of that, if you want to add something more to the root in our case, you will have to use .pack() again. Why? If you will give two sets of rules on how to place things on the screen for your computer - they will most likely conflict with each other. However, if we go one more level down and now want to place something inside our myFrame, we can again choose which set of rules to use. It is because it does not matter, where our frame is going to end up inside root, we now just want to specify where our Buttons 1 and 2 are going to end up inside the frame. Therefore we can again use .pack() or switch to .grid().
To conclude: .pack(), .grid() and .place() are sets of rules on how place widgets inside other widgets. In more general terms though these are rules on how place boxes in other boxes. One boxes in which we arrange other boxes can only have one set of rules.
I hope this example helps.

Tkinter Scrollbar

If I call text_area.pack() before scrollbar.pack() (i.e switch them), the scrollbar doesn't show. Why is that? If I am going to create a larger program, I would have absolutely no chance to find out where the problem is.
from tkinter import *
import tkinter.filedialog
root = Tk()
root.geometry("200x100")
frame = Frame(root,width=150, height=90)
frame.pack()
scrollbar = Scrollbar(frame)
text_area = Text(frame, width=200, height=50,yscrollcommand=scrollbar.set)
scrollbar.config(command=text_area.yview)
scrollbar.pack(side="right", fill="y")
text_area.pack()
root.mainloop()

The reason the scrollbar doesn't show is because there's simply no room for it. You're specifying a window size of 200x100 pixels and an inner frame size of 150x90 pixels, but you are trying to put a much larger text widget in that space. You're specifying a size of 200x50 characters (roughly 1400x750, depending on the fonts you're using) which is much too wide for the available space.
The way pack works is that it looks at the available space, puts the widget in that space, and subtracts the spaced needed for that widget from the space available for the next widget. Because you put the text widget first, and it requested more than the available space, it used up all of the available space. Then, when you call pack on the scrollbar, there's simply nowhere to put it.
When you reverse the order, the scrollbar takes up only a fraction of the available space, so there's room to fit the text widget in.
The best solution is to change the order in which you call pack. In general, it's best to call pack so that the last widget you call pack on is the "hero" -- the one that takes up all remaining space and grows or shrinks as the window grows and shrinks. Usually that's a text widget or a canvas widget, or a frame that itself contains many widgets.
The key to success with tkinter is to not try to force a tkinter widget or window to be a particular size in pixels (except, perhaps, for the canvas). Instead, either let a widget use it's default size (particularly with buttons and scrollbars), or pick a sensible default (number of rows and/or columns). Tkinter will then compute the right size to fit everything in based on the font, the screen resolution, and other factors.

The other 2 answers are really good - I thought I would add an example. Personally, I don't like to use .pack - I like to place things instead like this: self.set_label_logpage.place(x=175, y=100)
Example code:
faultlogframe_logs = tk.Label(self, textvariable=logging_screen_label, font=Roboto_Normal_Font,
height=180, width=400, background='white', foreground='black')
faultlogframe_logs.place(x=605, y=600)
self.scrollbar = Scrollbar(self, orient=VERTICAL, elementborderwidth=4, width=32)
self.scrollbar.pack(pady=60,padx=0, ipady=4, ipadx=4, side=RIGHT, fill=Y)
self.scrollbar_y = Scrollbar(self, orient=HORIZONTAL, width=12, takefocus=1)
self.scrollbar_y.pack(expand=TRUE, ipady=9, ipadx=9, padx=0, pady=0, side=BOTTOM, fill=X, anchor=S)
self.set_label_logpage = tk.Listbox(self, yscrollcommand=self.scrollbar.set, xscrollcommand=self.scrollbar_y.set)
self.set_label_logpage.config(font=Roboto_Normal_Font, background='white', foreground='black', height=16, width=55) #textvariable=self.label_to_display_log
self.set_label_logpage.place(x=175, y=100)
self.scrollbar_y.config(command=self.set_label_logpage.xview)
self.scrollbar.config(command=self.set_label_logpage.yview)

When you switch them, scrollbar.pack() simply is unaware that it needs to go top, instead it goes next place from top to bottom, and right. You can see that when you expand window size.
You can resolve the issue by replacing:
text_area.pack()
with:
text_area.pack(side="left")
When you want to design more complex geometry structures I'd suggest you use grid instead of pack.

How do I achieve the following Tkinter GUI layout with either pack or grid?

Here's my current GUI layout for my checkers game:
As you can see, it consists of a Menu along the top, a Canvas on the left where I draw the checkerboard, a toolbar (Frame) on the top right where I have various formatting/navigation buttons, and a Text widget that is used to annotate moves. Currently, I am using a grid layout for the widgets.
Here's what I need to do:
Be able to show/hide a scrollbar in the Text widget when the amount of text grows larger than the widget size. (This seems to require the grid layout, according to this article.)
Change the font and/or size of the text in the Text widget [via a Preferences dialog] and not leave weird gaps around the Text widget. (This seems to require a pack layout because the Text widget can only be given a width and height in characters not pixels ... that means the Text widget grows or shrinks when I change the font or size, and the window won't adjust to fit with a grid layout. I've been trying to use Font.measure to adjust the Text widget size according to the font selected, but I still get gaps because I can't resize the widget down to the exact pixel.)
My final solution needs to be cross-platform (both Windows & Linux, and hopefully Mac).
Which layout can I use to meet my requirements? If neither will work completely, which layout (grid or pack) will get me closest to my goal? Thanks!

For this simple layout you could use grid, pack or both. Neither has a clear advantage in this particular case. Both have the resize behavior you desire.
Off the top of my head I would use a horizontal frame to hold the buttons, and pack the buttons in it. I would then probably use grid to place the toolbar, text widget and scrollbar inside a frame. Pack can be used too, either would work. That takes care of the right side.
If you want the menubar the way it is in the picture (ie: non-standard, only over the chessboard) I would use a similar technique: another frame for the left side with the menubar packed on the top, chessboard on the bottom.
i would then use pack in the main window, with statusbar on the bottom, the chessboard on the left, and then the text area on the right.
However, it's better to use a standard menubar which means you don't need a containing frame for the chessboard/menubar combination
Here's a quick hack at one solution using a standard menubar. This uses the technique of putting most widgets as children of the parent, then using the in_ parameter to put them in a container. This makes it much easier to change the layout later since you don't have to change a whole hierarchy, but only placement of widgets in containers.
import Tkinter as tk
import random
class App(tk.Tk):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
tk.Tk.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
size = 40
menubar = tk.Menu(self)
menubar.add_cascade(label="Game")
menubar.add_cascade(label="Options")
menubar.add_cascade(label="Help")
chessboard = tk.Canvas(width=8*size, height=8*size, borderwidth = 0,
highlightthickness=0)
statusbar = tk.Label(self, borderwidth=1, relief="sunken")
right_panel = tk.Frame(self, borderwidth = 1, relief="sunken")
scrollbar = tk.Scrollbar(orient="vertical", borderwidth=1)
# N.B. height is irrelevant; it will be as high as it needs to be
text = tk.Text(background="white",width=40, height=1, borderwidth=0, yscrollcommand=scrollbar.set)
scrollbar.config(command=text.yview)
toolbar = tk.Frame(self)
for i in range(10):
b = tk.Button(self, text="B%s" % i, borderwidth=1)
b.pack(in_=toolbar, side="left")
self.config(menu=menubar)
statusbar.pack(side="bottom", fill="x")
chessboard.pack(side="left", fill="both", expand=False)
toolbar.grid(in_=right_panel, row=0, column=0, sticky="ew")
right_panel.pack(side="right", fill="both", expand=True)
text.grid(in_=right_panel, row=1, column=0, sticky="nsew")
scrollbar.grid(in_=right_panel, row=1, column=1, sticky="ns")
right_panel.grid_rowconfigure(1, weight=1)
right_panel.grid_columnconfigure(0, weight=1)
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = App()
app.mainloop()