2. ttk Themes Introduction

Unlike standard Tkinter widgets, ttk (Themed Tkinter) widgets separate their logic from their visual appearance.

A Theme is a collection of styles that defines the overall look and feel of all widgets across an entire application.

Vista is the default theme in Tkinter on windows.

For best results in style customization, use the 'clam' theme.

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2.1. Current theme

current_theme = style.theme_use()

Retrieves the name of the theme currently being used by the application.

Return value is a string (e.g., 'vista').

Example Code:

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import ttk

root = tk.Tk()
style = ttk.Style()

# Get the theme currently in use
current = style.theme_use()
print(f"Current active theme: {current}")

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2.2. All themes

available_themes = style.theme_names()

Retrieves a tuple containing the names of all available themes built into your system's Tkinter engine.

Return value is a tuple of strings (e.g., 'winnative', 'clam', 'alt', 'default', 'classic', 'vista', 'xpnative').

Example Code:

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import ttk

root = tk.Tk()
style = ttk.Style()

# Get all themes available on this machine
all_themes = style.theme_names()
print(f"Available themes: {all_themes}")

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2.3. Set theme

The clam theme is a good default for new applications since it is simple and is most customizable.

style.theme_use(theme_name)

Changes the current application theme to the specified theme name.

theme_name must be a string matching one of the names returned by style.theme_names().

Example Code:

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import ttk

root = tk.Tk()
style = ttk.Style()

# Switch the application's appearance to the 'clam' theme
style.theme_use("clam")

# Create a button to see the new theme in action
button = ttk.Button(root, text="Themed Button")
button.pack(padx=20, pady=20)

root.mainloop()