8. ttk Frame

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

8.1. Usage

The tkinter.ttk.Frame widget acts as a themed container for other widgets.
To create a frame widget the general syntax is
(assuming import via "from tkinter import ttk"):

frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, option=value): parent is the window or frame object.

Options can be passed as parameters separated by commas.

8.2. Sample Frame

The code below creates a themed frame with a specific border style and size using common widget options.

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import ttk

root = tk.Tk()
root.title("ttk.Frame Widget Example")
root.geometry("200x200")

# Note: To see customer styles clearly use 'clam' theme.
style = ttk.Style()
style.theme_use("clam")

frame = ttk.Frame(
    root,
    borderwidth=5,
    relief="groove",
    width=150,
    height=150
)

# Prevent the frame from shrinking to fit nothing; force its explicit size
frame.pack_propagate(False)
frame.pack(padx=20, pady=20)

root.mainloop()

8.3. Parameter syntax

frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, option=value)

Parameters:

borderwidth

bd: Syntax: frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, borderwidth=width)

Description: Sets the width of the frame's outer border in pixels.

Default: 0

cursor: Syntax: frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, cursor="cursor_type")

Description: Changes the mouse cursor when it hovers over the area of the frame.

Default: ""

height: Syntax: frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, height=height_in_pixels)

Description: Sets the vertical height of the frame container in pixels.

Default: 0

padding: Syntax: frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, padding=amount)

Description: Internal buffer padding surrounding nested content. Can accept a single integer, a 2-tuple (width, height), or a 4-tuple (left, top, right, bottom).

Default: ""

relief: Syntax: frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, relief="relief_type")

Description: Sets the border style behavior of the frame layout. Valid values include "flat", "raised", "sunken", "ridge", "solid", "groove".

Default: "flat"

style: Syntax: frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, style="style_name")

Description: Points to a custom layout configuration defined inside a ttk.Style() object tree (e.g., "TFrame" derivatives).

Default: ""

width: Syntax: frame_widget = ttk.Frame(parent, width=width_in_pixels)

Description: Sets the horizontal width of the frame container in pixels.

Default: 0

8.4. Theme Customization Options (via ttk.Style)

Global visual modifications like backgrounds are handled cleanly using custom style configurations.

Example Configuration:

style = ttk.Style()
style.configure(
    "Custom.TFrame",
    background="lightgray"
)

8.5. Default options

Code to inspect and get the current defaults for each themed frame layout option is below.

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import ttk

root = tk.Tk()

frame = ttk.Frame(root)
frame_options = frame.keys()

for option in frame_options:
    print(f"{option}: {frame.cget(option)}")