Jeff Epler's blog

Talking directly to in-process tcl/tk

To be clear the original post also calls out the situation where the tkinter part of python is not installed by default, and my technique would not be applicable there.

So what do you do if you like Tk but don't care for the high level abstraction provided by Tkinter? Well, you can import _tkinter and create a tkapp object with _tkinter.create().

The _tkinter module and the tkapp object is largely undocumented, but in Python 3.11 here are some useful methods:

• tkapp.createcommand: Create a callback into Python code. Takes a string and a callable. Creates a Tcl command with that name, that calls back into Python code: app.createcomand("cb", lambda *args: print("cb", args))
• tkapp.eval: Takes a command and evaluates it. Call it with a single string: app.eval("button .b -text HI -command {cb arg1 arg2}")
• tkapp.call: Takes a series of arguments, does proper Tcl quoting, and evaluates it: app.call("pack", ".b")

Python 3.11.2 (main, Aug 26 2024, 07:20:54) [GCC 12.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import _tkinter
>>> app = _tkinter.create()
>>> app.createcommand("cb", lambda *args: print("cb", args))
>>> app.eval("button .b -text HI -command {cb arg1 arg2}")
'.b'
>>> app.call("pack", ".b")
''
>>> # Now I click the button several times ...
>>> cb ('arg1', 'arg2')
cb ('arg1', 'arg2')
cb ('arg1', 'arg2')

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Setting the NET_WM_ICON for Tkinter application windows

The icon created by the example program

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