6. tk Frame

See: https://docs.python.org/3/library/tkinter.html#tkinter.Frame

6.1. Usage

The tkinter.Frame widget acts as a container for other widgets.
To create a frame widget the general syntax is
(assuming import via "import tkinter as tk"):
frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, option=value)
parent is the window or frame object.
Options can be passed as parameters separated by commas.

6.2. Sample Frame

The code below creates a frame with a specific border style and size.
The background color is set to a light gray so it can be easily seen.
The border is set to 2 pixels.
The relief is set to "groove" so it can be easily seen as there is no border colour setting.
The internalpadding is set to 10 pixels on all sides.
import tkinter as tk

root = tk.Tk()
root.title("Frame Widget Example")
root.geometry("300x200")

# Creating a frame with specified options
frame = tk.Frame(
    root,
    bg="#f9f9f9",
    bd=2,
    relief="groove",
    width=200,
    height=150,
    padx=10,
    pady=10
)

frame.pack(padx=20, pady=20)

root.mainloop()

../_images/frame.png

Tasks

  1. Modify the code so that it creates a Frame with the following settings:

    • Set the background colour to light blue.

    • Set the border width to 4 pixels.

    • Use a ridge border style.

    • Set the frame size to 220 pixels wide and 120 pixels high.

    • Add internal padding of 15 pixels horizontally and vertically.

    • Display the frame with 30 pixels of external padding.

    ../_images/frame_question.png

Modify the code so that it creates a Frame with the required settings.

import tkinter as tk

# Create the main window
root = tk.Tk()
root.title("Frame Question")
root.geometry("350x250")

# Create the Frame
frame = tk.Frame(
    root,
    bg="light blue",
    bd=4,
    relief="ridge",
    width=220,
    height=120,
    padx=15,
    pady=15
)

# Display the Frame
frame.pack(
    padx=30,
    pady=30
)

# Run the main event loop
root.mainloop()

6.3. Parameter syntax

The main options are below.

Note

The width and height options only specify the requested size. If the frame contains widgets, it will normally resize itself to fit them. To force the frame to keep its specified size, disable geometry propagation.

frame.pack_propagate(False)
# or
frame.grid_propagate(False)
frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, option=value)

Parameters:

background
bg
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, bg="color")
Description: Sets the background color of the frame.
Default: SystemButtonFace RGB: (240, 240, 240)
borderwidth
bd
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, bd=width)
Description: Sets the width of the frame's border.
Default: 0
cursor
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, cursor="cursor_type")
Description: Changes the mouse cursor when it hovers over the frame.
height
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, height=height_in_pixels)
Description: Sets the height of the frame in pixels.
Default: 0
highlightbackground
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, highlightbackground="color")
Description: Sets the color of the focus highlight when the frame does not have focus.
highlightcolor
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, highlightcolor="color")
Description: Sets the color of the focus highlight when the frame has focus.
highlightthickness
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, highlightthickness=thickness)
Description: Sets the thickness of the focus highlight.
Default: 0
padx
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, padx=padding)
Description: Sets the horizontal padding to add inside the frame.
pady
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, pady=padding)
Description: Sets the vertical padding to add inside the frame.
relief
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, relief="relief_type")
Description: Sets the border style of the frame. Values include "flat", "raised", "sunken", "ridge", "solid", "groove".
Default: "flat"
takefocus
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, takefocus=True)
Description: Determines whether the frame can receive keyboard focus during focus traversal (for example, when pressing the Tab key).
Default: 0
width
Syntax: frame_widget = tk.Frame(parent, width=width_in_pixels)
Description: Sets the width of the frame in pixels.
Default: 0

6.4. Default options

Code to display the default value for each Frame option is shown below.
import tkinter as tk

root = tk.Tk()

widget = tk.Frame(root)
widget_options = widget.keys()

for option in widget_options:
    print(f"{option}: {widget.cget(option)}")  # cget retrieves the current value of the option