.. _tkinter:

*********************************
Graphical User Interfaces with Tk
*********************************

.. index::
   single: GUI
   single: Graphical User Interface
   single: Tkinter
   single: Tk

Tk/Tcl has long been an integral part of Python.  It provides a robust and
platform independent windowing toolkit, that is available to Python programmers
using the :mod:`Tkinter` module, and its extension, the :mod:`Tix` module.

The :mod:`Tkinter` module is a thin object-oriented layer on top of Tcl/Tk. To
use :mod:`Tkinter`, you don't need to write Tcl code, but you will need to
consult the Tk documentation, and occasionally the Tcl documentation.
:mod:`Tkinter` is a set of wrappers that implement the Tk widgets as Python
classes.  In addition, the internal module :mod:`_tkinter` provides a threadsafe
mechanism which allows Python and Tcl to interact.

:mod:`Tkinter`'s chief virtues are that it is fast, and that it usually comes
bundled with Python. Although it has been used to create some very good
applications, including IDLE, it has weak documentation and an outdated look and
feel. For more modern, better documented, and much more extensive GUI
libraries, see the :ref:`other-gui-packages` section.

.. toctree::
   
   tkinter.rst
   tix.rst
   scrolledtext.rst
   turtle.rst
   idle.rst
   othergui.rst

.. % Other sections I have in mind are
.. % Tkinter internals
.. % Freezing Tkinter applications