Tkinter Menu
Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a Tkinter menu bar, add menus to the menu bar, and add menu items to each menu.
When an application contains a lot of functions, you need to use menus to organize them for easier navigation.
Typically, you use a menu to group closely related operations. For example, you can find the File menu in most text editors.
Tkinter natively supports menus. It displays menus with the look-and-feel of the target platform that the program runs e.g., Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Creating a simple menu
First, create a root
window and set its title to 'Menu Demo'
:
root = tk.Tk()
root.title('Menu Demo')
Code language: Python (python)
Second, create a menu bar and assign it to the menu
option of the root
window:
menubar = Menu(root)
root.config(menu=menubar)
Code language: Python (python)
Note that each top-level window can only have only one menu bar.
Third, create a File menu whose container is the menubar
:
file_menu = Menu(menubar)
Code language: Python (python)
Fourth, add a menu item to the file_menu
:
file_menu.add_command(
label='Exit',
command=root.destroy,
)
Code language: Python (python)
In this example, the label of the menu item is Exit
.
When you click the Exit
menu item, Python will call the root.destroy()
method automatically to close the root
window.
Finally, add the File
menu to the menubar:
menubar.add_cascade(
label="File",
menu=file_menu,
underline=0
)
Code language: Python (python)
The underline
option allows you to create a keyboard shortcut. It specifies the character position that should be underlined.
Note that the position starts from zero. In this example, we specify it as the first character which is F
. And you can select it by using the Alt+F
keyboard shortcut.
Put it all together:
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import Menu# root window
root = tk.Tk()
root.title('Menu Demo')
# create a menubar
menubar = Menu(root)
root.config(menu=menubar)
# create a menu
file_menu = Menu(menubar)
# add a menu item to the menu
file_menu.add_command(
label='Exit',
command=root.destroy
)
# add the File menu to the menubar
menubar.add_cascade(
label="File",
menu=file_menu
)
root.mainloop()
Code language: Python (python)
Output:
By default, Tkinter adds a dashed line before the first menu item. When you click the dashed line, the main window will detach the menu from it like this:
To remove the dashed line, you can set the tearoff
property of the menu to False
:
file_menu = Menu(menubar, tearoff=False)
Code language: Python (python)
Output:
Creating a more complex menu
The following program illustrates how to create a menu bar, add the File and Help menus to the menu bar. Also, it adds multiple menu items to these menus:
from tkinter import Tk, Frame, Menu# root window
root = Tk()
root.geometry('320x150')
root.title('Menu Demo')
# create a menubar
menubar = Menu(root)
root.config(menu=menubar)
# create the file_menu
file_menu = Menu(
menubar,
tearoff=0
)
# add menu items to the File menu
file_menu.add_command(label='New')
file_menu.add_command(label='Open...')
file_menu.add_command(label='Close')
file_menu.add_separator()
# add Exit menu item
file_menu.add_command(
label='Exit',
command=root.destroy
)
# add the File menu to the menubar
menubar.add_cascade(
label="File",
menu=file_menu
)
# create the Help menu
help_menu = Menu(
menubar,
tearoff=0
)
help_menu.add_command(label='Welcome')
help_menu.add_command(label='About...')
# add the Help menu to the menubar
menubar.add_cascade(
label="Help",
menu=help_menu
)
root.mainloop()
Code language: Python (python)
Output:
The only new statement in this program is to use the add_separator()
method to add a separator to the menu.
Adding a submenu
The following program adds the menu item Preferences
to the File
menu and create a submenu that links the new menu item:
from tkinter import Tk, Menu# root window
root = Tk()
root.geometry('320x150')
root.title('Menu Demo')
# create a menubar
menubar = Menu(root)
root.config(menu=menubar)
# create the file_menu
file_menu = Menu(
menubar,
tearoff=0
)
# add menu items to the File menu
file_menu.add_command(label='New')
file_menu.add_command(label='Open...')
file_menu.add_command(label='Close')
file_menu.add_separator()
# add a submenu
sub_menu = Menu(file_menu, tearoff=0)
sub_menu.add_command(label='Keyboard Shortcuts')
sub_menu.add_command(label='Color Themes')
# add the File menu to the menubar
file_menu.add_cascade(
label="Preferences",
menu=sub_menu
)
# add Exit menu item
file_menu.add_separator()
file_menu.add_command(
label='Exit',
command=root.destroy
)
menubar.add_cascade(
label="File",
menu=file_menu,
underline=0
)
# create the Help menu
help_menu = Menu(
menubar,
tearoff=0
)
help_menu.add_command(label='Welcome')
help_menu.add_command(label='About...')
# add the Help menu to the menubar
menubar.add_cascade(
label="Help",
menu=help_menu,
underline=0
)
root.mainloop()
Code language: Python (python)
Output:
How it works.
The following code adds a submenu to File
menu and links the submenu to Preferences
menu item:
# add a submenu
sub_menu = Menu(file_menu, tearoff=0)
sub_menu.add_command(label='Keyboard Shortcuts')
sub_menu.add_command(label='Color Themes')# add the File menu to the menubar
file_menu.add_cascade(
label="Preferences",
menu=sub_menu
)
Code language: Python (python)
Summary
- Use
Menu()
to create a new menu, - Use
menu.add_command()
method to add a menu item to the menu. - Use
menubar.add_cascade(menu_title, menu)
to add amenu
to themenubar
. - Use
menu.add(submenu_title, submenu)
to add a submenu to themenu
.