better way to update a Tkinter listbox - python

Hi
so first of all i made a program that downloads music and displays the percent that has downloaded in a list box.
kind of like this
from Tkinter import *
from urllib2 import *
admin = Tk()
Admin = Tk()
listbox = Listbox(admin, bg="PURPLE")
listbox.pack()
def fores():
chunks = 10000
dat = ''
song = '3 rounds and a sound'
url = 'http://bonton.sweetdarkness.net/music/Blind%20Pilot%20--%203%20Rounds%20and%20A%20Sound.mp3'
down = urlopen(url)
downso = 0
tota = down.info().getheader('Content-Length').strip()
tota = int(tota)
while 1:
a = down.read(chunks)
downso += len(a)
if not a:
break
dat += a
percent = float(downso) / tota
percent = round(percent*100, 1)
listbox.insert(END, percent)
listbox.update()
listbox.delete(0, END)
listbox.insert(END, percent)
listbox.update()
button = Button(Admin, text='Download', command=fores)
button.pack()
button = Button(Admin, text='Download', command=fores)
button.pack()
mainloop()
I wont show you the original program for it is over the limit of the post size.
On my original program if i move the window before i download an mp3 file it downloads less then 3 % and stops and if i then close the window it starts downloading again.
does anyone know why this is or if there is an alternative to displaying the percentage on the Tkinter window?
Please help
and update_idletasks doesent work

The proper widget for displaying a string is a Label. You can change the text at runtime with the configure method:
self.progress = Label(...)
...
self.progress.configure(text="%s%% completed" % percent)
Second, you are creating two root windows - admin and Admin. And strangely, you are putting the listbox in one and the buttons in another. Tk isn't designed to work like that. Third, you need to call the mainloop method of your (single) root window (eg: Admin.mainloop)
Finally, as to your comment that update_idletasks doesn't work -- please define "doesn't work". It will in fact update the display. What it won't do is let you interact with the window while it is running.
I made changes to your code based on the above comments (created only one root, used a Label rather than Listbox, and used update_idletasks and the program ran to completion, downloading the song.
The danger of calling update is this: what if you click the "download" button while you are already downloading? What happens is the next time update is called, that button press will be serviced. In the servicing of that event you'll enter an infinite loop. While that inner infinite loop is running the outer one cannot run. You will have effectively frozen the first download.
The proper solution involves one of (at least) two techniques. One, create a thread to do the downloading, and have it periodically send information back to the main loop so it can update the progress bar. The second is to leverage the already existing infinite loop -- the event loop -- and do your reading of chunks one at a time by placing jobs on the event queue with after.
There are examples on the internet for both approaches.

i use a ttk.Progressbar, all you have to do is associate a variable to it and update that particular variable.
http://docs.python.org/library/ttk.html#progressbar
http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/morewidgets.html#progressbar

Related

Updating a TKinter Label during other loops

Currently I'm working on a project of mine involving sensors, and showing that sensory data on a display via TKinter. Everythings written in Python 3.7.3.
The issue im currently handling, is to update the label in the window, while the mainloop is running.
What i mean by this, is that if i execute the script, first the window options get defined, then the update function gets defined with a while true loop. Then its supposed to start the window. Now because of the while true loop it does not reach the window.mainloop() point (obviously, the while loop doesn't break...). My interest was peaked and i tried to put the window.mainloop() function inside the while loop of the update (please don't blame me, i know my script is a spaghetti mess.) I figured out that i could run the whole thing in threads, and so i decided to thread the whole window process, and add queues for the sensor data. Now the while loop was still in the way and didnt work properly, and after a bit of googling i found a code snippet that might help me. After trying to implement it in my script, i got an exception "function init expects 3 arguments, but 4 were given.." (code below) and I'm kinda running out of ideas on this.
Bear in mind that im not raelly a developer, i just need a script that can handle sensor data, dispaly it in a window, and export the current data to a database. So go easy on the blame please.
Current Script:
import time
import board
import adafruit_dht
import threading
import queue
from tkinter import *
dhtDevice = adafruit_dht.DHT22(board.D4, use_pulseio=False)
tempQ = queue.Queue(maxsize=0)
humQ = queue.Queue(maxsize=0)
class windowMain:
def __init__(self):
self.tempC_label = Label(fenster, text="Placeholder TempC")
self.humidity_label = Label(fenster, text="Placeholder Humidity")
self.tempC_label.pack()
self.humidity_label.pack()
self.tempC_label.after(2000, self.labelUpdate)
self.humidity_label.after(2000, self.labelUpdate)
def labelUpdate(self, tempQ, humQ):
self.tempC_label.configure(text= tempQ.get() + "°C")
#this is just to confirm if the function called or not, to see if the label updated or not.
#if the label didnt update, and the function called, there is something wrong with the function
#if the label didnt update, and the function didnt call, there is a problem somwhere else
print("Current Temp: " +tempQ.get() + "°C")
self.label.after(2000, self.labelUpdate)
if __name__ == "__main__":
windowName = Tk()
windowName.title = ("Climatemonitor")
windowMain(windowName)
windowName.mainloop()
try:
windowThread = threading.Thread(target=windowMain, args=(tempQ, humQ, ))
windowThread.start()
except:
print("Unable to start thread")
while True:
try:
temperature_c= dhtDevice.temperature
tempText= temperature_c
tempText= str(tempText)
tempQ.put(tempText)
humidity = dhtDevice.humidity
humidityP = str(humidity)
#this one is just to check if the sensor reads data
print(
"Temp: {:.1f} C Humidity: {}% ".format(
temperature_c, humidity
)
)
time.sleep(2.0)
except RuntimeError as error:
print(error.args[0])
time.sleep(2.0)
continue
except Exception as error:
dhtDevice.exit()
raise error
time.sleep(2.0)
The ultimate goal is to display my sensor data, with a 2 second refresh (the HZ rate of the Sensor), while the sensor continues to read every 2 seconds.
I'd also like to add that this is my first time using Python, since im, again, not really a developer yet.
Thanks a bunch in advance for every critique and help
most simple way of doing this would be using a button to execute a function and then including your while loop in that function,
Using an button gives you an point where you can start running while instead of directly starting it as soon as you run your program
Sample code should be something like this,
import tkinter as t
def execute():
print('hello')
window = t.Tk()
window.title("system")
window.geometry("550x250")
b1 = t.Button(window, text="Start", width=15, command=execute)
b1.grid(row=1, sticky="W", padx=4)
window.mainloop()
As there will be no user interaction, a button can invoked using button.invoke method such as following,
import tkinter as t
def execute():
print('hello')
window = t.Tk()
window.title("system")
window.geometry("550x250")
b1 = t.Button(window, text="Start", width=0, command=execute)
#b1.grid(row=1, sticky="W", padx=4)
b1.invoke()
window.mainloop()
here removing .grid() will cause the button to disapper but can affect your GUI while updating the label value later , also have a look at this ->
Is there a way to press a button without touching it on tkinter / python?
Python tkinter button.invoke method trouble

How to show the current window in Tkinter?

Hope you can help me with the following issue.
I'm using the library tkinter and
I have a main_screen main_screen= Tk() which is looping with mainloop()
Inside of the main_screen, there is a little data form where you need to type some necessary data.
And at the end of the window, I have a button to open a second window.
Once I click in that button, report_screen appears (See below in my code)
The new window should appear with the command Toplevel() and print a label that says Starting:
request_start = LabelFrame(report_screen, text="Starting...").pack()
then my program must run a process where it takes around 10 seconds to complete it.
Let's suppose that my process is just this
time.sleep(10)
And finally, run the next line:
request_done = LabelFrame(report_screen, text="Done").pack()
What is my problem?
The problem is that report_screen doesnt appear until the process of 10 sec has finished, and appears with both labels "Starting..." and "Done" at the same time.
I don't want that, I require that report_screen appears with the label "Starting", and then run the process, and when the process finished, add the "Done" label
This is the part of my code where I have this issue
report_screen = Toplevel()
request_start = Label(report_screen, text="Starting...").pack()
time.sleep(10) #example of my process that takes around 10 seconds
request_done = Label(report_screen, text="Done").pack()
Using update() method works to update whatever is in the screen

Why does my progress bar work with "print" command and not with tkinter?

I would like to understand why this code:
import time
for i in range(1,11):
print(i)
time.sleep(1)
shows (as it should!) numbers from 1 to 10, each every 1 second, while this code:
from tkinter import *
import time
root = Tk()
for i in range(1,11):
Label(root, text = i).grid(row=0, column=i-1, padx=5, pady =5)
time.sleep(1)
root.mainloop()
waits for 10 seconds, and then displays a window with the 10 numbers (instead of adding them one by one).
I am aware this is a silly question, but I really can't understand! Many Thanks! Alessandro
Most GUI's work differently to what you expect.
They work in an asynchronous way, which means, that you setup your windows and start an event loop.
This event loop will display all widgets, labels, etc, that you set up before calling the event loop and wait for any events (GUI events like mouse or keyboard events, timer events and perhaps network events).
When any event is encountered code associated to that event will be called and this code can request to change the GUI (show or hide elements, change labels or attributes of graphical widgets) However the change to the GUI will only be performed when you give control back to the event loop (when the code handling an event finished)
In your given code you change a label in a for loop with sleep statements, but only after the for loop is finished your main loop is being called and this is the moment, where the final state of your GUI will be displayed.
So what you encounter is a know issue for almost all GUI / asynhronous kind of applications.
You have to rewrite your code such, that you start a timer event, and when the timer event fires a function will set a label and increase the counter by 1. And if the counter is not 11 it will restart another timer
This is because the time.sleep function is before the root.mainloop function.
root.mainloop is what causes the window to appear on-screen and start doing things. Instead, I'd recommend using window.after, as that tells the window to run a function after some time when it's on-screen.
Here's an example of a modification you could make (it's not that good but it works):
from tkinter import *
import time
root = Tk()
progress = 0
end = 10
def update_progress():
global progress
progress += 1
Label(root, text = progress).grid(row=0, column=progress-1, padx=5, pady =5)
if progress < end: root.after(1000,update_progress) # Tell the window to call this function in 1000ms (1 second)
root.after(0,update_progress) # Tell the window to run the update_progress function 0ms after now.
root.mainloop()
I'd recommend looking at gelonida's answer for an explanation of why your original code didn't work, and what you need to keep in mind when programming with GUIs in the future.

Opening a new Tkinter window while continuing to run a loop in another

I am working on a large program that opens new windows from a desktop widget. The desktop widget has a 'ticker' style label that displays a piece of text representing an iteration through a list. My problem is when I first wrote the program I called mainloop() with each new window I opened. The result was the new window and program would run as designed, but the ticker would freeze. Even upon closing the newly created window, the ticker would not restart. So I removed the mainloop() line. The result of this is the ticker continues to run and I can work within the new window, but everything is soooo laggy. I suspect this has something to do with the after() method?
Attached is a test code that I am using to try to sort this out before applying the correct code to my program. And I'm sure you can tell by reading the code, but I am self taught and an absolute newb, so please dumb down the explanations if possible. Thank so much!
from tkinter import *
def new_window():
nw = Tk()
item = Text(nw)
item.grid()
L = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
root = Tk()
Button(root, text = 'Open', command = new_window).grid(row = 1)
while True:
for i in L:
num = Label(root, text = i)
num.grid(row = 0)
root.after(2500)
num.update()
root.mainloop()
A tkinter application should always have exactly one instance ofTk, and you should call mainloop exactly once. If you have more than one instance the program will not likely work the way you expect. It's possible to make it work, but unless you understand exactly what is happening under the hood you should stick to this rule of thumb.
If you need more windows, create instances of Toplevel. You should not call mainloop for each extra window.
Also, you shouldn't have an infinite loop where you call after the way that you do. mainloop is already an infinite loop, you don't need another. There are several examples on this website of using after to call a function at regular intervals without creating a separate loop.

Tkinter box packing in loop is slow

I'm running a slowish process of building a set of PDFs using LaTeX that's put together by my script.
The PDFs are built in a for loop. I wanted to show a status window that would add a line for each student that the loop goes through, so that you could see the progress. I have been doing this with print, but I wanted something that integrated well with the Tkinter interface that I have moved to.
I have this:
ReStatuswin = Toplevel(takefocus=True)
ReStatuswin.geometry('800x300')
ReStatuswin.title("Creating Reassessments...")
Rebox2 = MultiListbox(ReStatuswin, (("Student", 15), ("Standard", 25), ("Problems", 25) ))
Rebox2.pack(side = TOP)
OKR = Button(ReStatuswin, text='OK', command=lambda:ReStatuswin.destroy())
OKR.pack(side = BOTTOM)
and then the loop:
for row in todaylist:
and then, inside the loop, after the PDF has been made,
Rebox2.insert(END, listy)
It inserts the row fine, but they all show up (along with the ReBox2 window itself) only after the entire loop is finished.
Any idea about what's causing the delay in display?
Thanks!
Yes, from what I can tell, there are two problems. First, you are not updating the display with each new entry. Second, you are not triggering the for loop with a button but instead having it run on startup (which means that the display won't be created until after the loop exits). Unfortunately however, I can't really work with the code you gave because it is a snippet of a much larger thing. However, I made a little script that should demonstrate how to do what you want:
from Tkinter import Button, END, Listbox, Tk
from time import sleep
root = Tk()
# My version of Tkinter doesn't have a MultiListbox
# So, I use its closest alternative, a regular Listbox
listbox = Listbox(root)
listbox.pack()
def start():
"""This is where your loop would go"""
for i in xrange(100):
# The sleeping here represents a time consuming process
# such as making a PDF
sleep(2)
listbox.insert(END, i)
# You must update the listbox after each entry
listbox.update()
# You must create a button to call a function that will start the loop
# Otherwise, the display won't appear until after the loop exits
Button(root, text="Start", command=start).pack()
root.mainloop()

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