Member Avatar for WolfShield

I am going through the Tk/Tkinter tutorial and
when I try to run the menubar program I get two windows instead of a menubar on one window.

Here is the code:

from tkinter import *
from tkinter import ttk
root = Tk()
root.option_add('*tearOff', FALSE)

win = Toplevel(root)
menubar = Menu(win)
win['menu'] = menubar

menubar = Menu(win)
menu_file = Menu(menubar)
menu_edit = Menu(menubar)
menubar.add_cascade(menu=menu_file, label='File')
menubar.add_cascade(menu=menu_edit, label='Edit')

menu_file.add_command(label='New', command=None)
menu_file.add_command(label='Open...', command=None)
menu_file.add_command(label='Close', command=None)

root.mainloop()

Please let me know what I am doing wrong.

- WolfShield

  • 3 Contributors
  • 6 Replies
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  • 1 Day Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by HiHe

Dani AI

Generated

Short answer: you created two windows. root = Tk() makes the main application window; Toplevel(root) makes a second one. That is why you saw two separate windows instead of a single window with a menu. There is a second bug too: the original code makes two different Menu objects (the first gets attached, then you overwrite the menubar variable with a new menu and populate the new one but never attach it).

was on the right track: keep it simple and attach a single menu to the window you actually want to use. If you really want only a Toplevel shown, hide the initial Tk() window with root.withdraw() and then attach the menu to the Toplevel. If you want the normal single-window app, just use the Tk() window and do not create a Toplevel.

Example (showing the hide-root pattern and avoiding the double-Menu mistake):

from tkinter import Tk, Toplevel, Menu

root = Tk()
root.withdraw()               # hide the automatic root window

win = Toplevel(root)
menubar = Menu(win, tearoff=0)
win.config(menu=menubar)

file_menu = Menu(menubar, tearoff=0)
menubar.add_cascade(label="File", menu=file_menu)
file_menu.add_command(label="Exit", command=win.destroy)

root.mainloop()

Troubleshooting checklist:

  • Decide whether to use Tk() (main window) or a Toplevel() (secondary window). Do not create both unless you intend two windows.
  • Create one menubar object and attach it with window.config(menu=menubar) (or window['menu']=...), then add submenus to that menubar.
  • Use tearoff=0 or root.option_add('*tearOff', FALSE) to disable silly tear-off menus.
  • On macOS the menu may appear in the system menu bar (that is expected).

If something still looks wrong, confirm which window is visible (root vs Toplevel) and that the Menu you populated is the same object you attached. is right: experimenting with small examples helps these layout/parenting rules sink in.

Recommended Answers

All 6 Replies

Member Avatar for vegaseat

Too much junk in the code, try it this way ...

from tkinter import *
from tkinter import ttk

root = Tk()
root.option_add('*tearOff', FALSE)

menubar = Menu(root)
root.config(menu=menubar)
menu_file = Menu(menubar)
menu_edit = Menu(menubar)
menubar.add_cascade(menu=menu_file, label='File')
menubar.add_cascade(menu=menu_edit, label='Edit')

menu_file.add_command(label='New', command=None)
menu_file.add_command(label='Open...', command=None)
menu_file.add_command(label='Close', command=None)

root.mainloop()
Member Avatar for HiHe

There are some pretty bad tutorials floating about, which one is this exactly?

Member Avatar for WolfShield

I am going through this one: http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/

What one would you suggest?

Thank you vegaseat, my program is working right now. Was it the 'Toplevel' that was
creating the second window?

- WolfShield

Member Avatar for vegaseat

Just experiment with it!

This is sort of the Bible of Tkinter:
http://infohost.nmt.edu/tcc/help/pubs/tkinter.pdf

However bummer, you have to come up with your own examples and again experiment.

Edited by vegaseat because: n/a
Member Avatar for WolfShield

Thanks everyone!

- WolfShield

Member Avatar for HiHe

GUI programming takes a while to get used to. I always hang up on the widget layouts.

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