From: landrum at foreman.ac.rwth-aachen.de (Greg Landrum)
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 17:01:18 +0200
Subject: Beginner - Tkinter info
References: <371c59e9.2723125@news.tin.it>
Message-ID: <371B453E.C3F83831@foreman.ac.rwth-aachen.de>
Content-Length: 2563
X-UID: 121                                                  

Kranio wrote:
> 
> I am just starting using python and I would like to learn more. I have
> about all the docs written by guido but I haven't found yet
> documentation about tkinter usage. Can you help me?
> Where I can find some example of both python and tkinter?

A couple of people have already provided pointers to what
little there is in the way of Tkinter docs, so I'm not actually
going to contribute anything towards answering this question.
What I am going to do is take this wonderful opportunity to bitch
and moan a little bit about the state of the Tkinter documentation.

The rest of the "base" parts of python seem to be fairly completely
documented.  At least I can always find the information I need to
solve whatever problem I happen to be having.  This is a great thing
(thanks Guido!) which makes it easy for experienced programmers
who are new to Python to hit the ground running.

Unfortunately, the same isn't even close to true of Tkinter.
The most useful thing I have so far been able to find is
Fredrik Lundh's "Introduction to Tkinter":
http://www.pythonware.com/library/tkinter/introduction/index.htm
While this contains some useful information, it has a couple of
problems:
1) It's a work in progress (which means: "woefully incomplete").
2) It isn't available as one download (if it is, I couldn't find
 it and I looked pretty hard).  I do most of my programming at 
 home where constant net access is not an option, so I like to
 have my docs locally accessible.  Not to mention how frustrating 
 problems with net lag are when trying to read docs.
3) It is woefully incomplete.

I did my first "reasonable size" program in python the weekend
before last.  I really enjoyed the whole process (including 
learning more of the language), with the exception of figuring
out how to make Tkinter work.  If it hadn't been for Pmw (which
includes copious examples and is almost completely documented), 
I would have thrown my hands up in disgust and either abandoned 
the project or gone back to straight C and XLib... which would
have been a real shame,  because the thrill of having my little
networked game run essentially without modification on NT, linux 
and AIX was hard to beat.

I know full well that writing docs is both boring and a pain in 
the ass, but they really are needed by the community and would
(I think) help the growth of python.

Just my two cents,
-greg


-- 
---------------------
Dr. Greg Landrum  (landrum.NOSPAM at foreman.ac.rwth-aachen.de)
Institute of Inorganic Chemistry
Aachen University of Technology




