Requirements

Is your Python upto date?

If you are using Python 2.7 or later or any of the Python 3 versions then the tkinter version will be 8.5 or later, if we import the ttk module in an active Python session there will be no warning message.

In order to use the scripts developed here, a modern version of Python with a tkinter version needs to have themed widgets (ttk). If tkinter is 8.6 or greater png files can be used directly. Open a python session and import ttk to confirm all will run.

Warning

Python2 is no longer supported, so unless there are backward compatability issues work with Python3.

Python3	Python2
import tkinter.ttk	import Tkinter.ttk

• Windows Directory

  When working in Windows I found it useful to use directories within the user working directory C:\Users\edgar\programs\python312 for the Python 3.12 installation, C:\Users\edgar\python for general python scripts and C:\Users\edgar\sphinx for sphinx specific scripts, this avoids editing issues if the programs were installed in C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86).

• Newer Tkinter 8.6 reference

  "Tkinter Class API Reference"

• Older Tkinter reference

  download the pdf version of "Tkinter 8.5 reference a GUI for Python",

• There is an alternative site 8.5 refrerence

  https://anzeljg.github.io/rin2/book2/2405/docs/tkinter/index.html

External Python Modules

Additional python modules can be installed from a system window, in Windows use the command module cmd found under C:WindowsSytem32cmd.exe. Once Python is installed and running open the system window and type in pip install module.

• Themed widgets

  See what has already been done with widgets, view and install the external module ttkthemes:

  pip install ttkthemes
  

  found at "ttkthemes at github".

• Encoding and decoding images

  Using the base64 module.

• Graphics editor

  Check and edit images.

Pillow and PIL

Ensure that the older version of PIL has been uninstalled,

pip uninstall PIL

• PIL (Pillow)

  Used extensively for drawing:

  pip install Pillow
  

• Pretty Print.

  Better display for some of the output:

  pip install pprint
  

• colorsys

  Colour conversion between RGB, HLV, etc:

  pip install colorsys
  

• These words of wisdom

  Go to github Putting on the Style! clone and unzip in your python playground, make sure that examples, tables and images stay at the same level in the directory structure, the other files and images are not relevant if you are viewing readthedocs.

  If you want to run it as a sphinx example unzip to your sphinx playground, then install sphinx and sphinx-rtd-theme.:

  pip install sphinx
  
  pip install sphinx-rtd-theme
  

  All the necessary files should be present, so from your os system switch to the docs directory of the unzipped files and run the command make html, which should make a new subdirectory _build/html, where you can load index.html.

• Python IDE or code editor

  An IDE is an Integrated Development Environment, used to control projects - probably most inexperienced users only need a code editor, certainly they are easier to learn. Idle and Thonny come with the Python installation, my choice would be Thonny. A second lightweight code editor is PyScripter (only available for Windows). More experienced users require an IDE and these are best for the individual to try, judge and select according to personal requirements.