Creating a GUI with Hard-Coding

We need the Tkinter and Pint libraries:

import tkinter as tk
import pint

Some people use the convention from tkinter import * which imports everything from Tkinter without having to use the syntax tkinter.blah. I prefer to import libraries the usual way (import tkinter as tk) to avoid any potential namespace conflicts. This alternative syntax could create weird conflicts if Tkinter had a function called blah(), for example, and you unknowingly decided to create a different function called blah().

Using Tkinter

When making a GUI with Tkinter, you need to decide if you are going to arrange elements by gridding them with grid() or packing them with pack(). Pack() packs the elements sequentially as you create them, while grid() allows you to grid according to row number and column number. You will use grid() in all of your examples. If you mix grid() and pack(), your program will either error out, or it will run in an infinite loop but not display anything as it tries to figure out how to display elements that are gridded and packed (hint: it’s not possible, so Tkinter will never figure it out).

All of the elements that you can create with Tkinter are still Python objects; they can be manipulated, named, and renamed. “Widget” is a popular term that is used to label any object. Below is a table of the common Tkinter widgets:

Tkinter Widget Name	Description
Tk.Label	A stage to display text
Tk.Entry	A text box where the user can write text
Tk.Button	A button to click
Tk.RadioButton	A selection radio button. Choose one option only
Tk.CheckButton	A selection checkmark button. Choose as many options as you want
Tk.OptionMenu	A dropdown menu. Choose one option only

There are many more options, but these are usually the beginner’s most popular widgets.

The first step is to create the Tk instance, set the width and height of the window, and name the window.