Python Tkinter PanedWindow Widget

In this tutorial, we will cover the Tkinter PanedWindow widget which is mainly a container widget containing one or more than one child widgets which are also known as Panes.

• This widget arranges child widgets either in a vertical or in a horizontal manner.

• It is also known as the Geometry Manager widget.

• This widget is used to implement different layouts in a Python desktop application created using the Tkinter module.

• The child widgets inside the PanedWindow widget can be resized by the user by moving separator lines sashes using the mouse.

• You can implement multiple panes using the PanedWindow widget.

Here is a simple Tkinter application window with three widgets stacked vertically inside a PanedWindow widget.

Tkinter PanedWindow Widget

The syntax of the PanedWindow widget is given below:

W = PanedWindow(master, options) 

In the above syntax, the master parameter denotes the parent window. You can use many options to change the look of the PanedWindow and these options are written as comma-separated.

Tkinter PanedWindow Widget Options:

Following are the various options used with PanedWindow widget:

Tkinter PanedWindow Widget Methods:

Following are some methods used with PanedWindow widget:

Tkinter PanedWindow Widget Example

Below we have a basic example for the understanding of the PanedWindow widget. Let us see the code snippet given below:

from tkinter import *  

# event handler for button
def addition():  
    x = int(e1.get())  
    y = int(e2.get())  
    leftdata = str(x+y)  
    leftinput.insert(1, leftdata)  

# first paned window
w1 = PanedWindow()  
w1.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=1)  
  
leftinput = Entry(w1, bd=5)  
w1.add(leftinput)  
  
# second paned window
w2 = PanedWindow(w1, orient=VERTICAL)  
w1.add(w2)  
  
e1 = Entry(w2)
e2 = Entry(w2)
  
w2.add(e1)  
w2.add(e2)  
  
bottomBtn = Button(w2, text="Addition", command=addition)  
w2.add(bottomBtn)  
  
mainloop()

As you can see above, in the output, we have an application window, in which we have 3 tkinter Entry widgets and 1 tkinter button widget, stacked using 2 PanedWindow widgets packed vertically besides each other.

If you will provide, two numbers in the right side entry widgets and then click on the Addition button, the result of addition of the numbers in the right, will be shown in the entry widget on the left hand side.

Tkinter PanedWindow Widget - Multiple Panes Example

Let us see another code snippet of this widget given below:

from tkinter import * 
from tkinter import tk 

win = Tk() 

pw = PanedWindow(orient ='vertical') 
#creating Button widget 
top = tk.Button(pw, text ="Just Click Me!!!\nI am a Button") 
top.pack(side=TOP) 

#Adding button widget to the panedwindow 
pw.add(top) 

#Creating Checkbutton Widget 
bot = Checkbutton(pw, text="I am Checkbutton Choose Me!") 
bot.pack(side=TOP) 
pw.add(bot) 

label = Label(pw, text="I am a Label") 
label.pack(side=TOP) 

pw.add(label) 

string = StringVar() 

entry = Entry(pw, textvariable=string, font=('arial', 15, 'bold')) 
entry.pack() 

# This is used to force focus on particular widget 
# that means widget is already selected for some operations 
entry.focus_force() 

pw.add(entry) 
pw.pack(fill = BOTH, expand = True) 

# To show sash 
pw.configure(sashrelief = RAISED) 

mainloop() 

In the above code example, we have create multiple widgets inside a panedwindow widget. We have also used StringVar() variable and we have used the focus_force() function to have entry widget in focus when the application is loaded.

Summary:

In this tutorial, we learned about PanedWindow widget which is a great widget if you want to create multi-column grid like arrangement of widgets in your application.