Python Tkinter Entry List Impossible?

Question

Is it utterly impossible to receive a list from user input in Tkinter? Something along the lines of an HTML textarea box - where a user can (1) copy and paste a list of things into a text box, and then (2) tkinter translates the input list into a list of strings, then (3) can assign them to a value and do fun python stuff etc

I have reasonable faith I can accomplish parts (2) and (3), but I'm stuck on (1).

I have explored Entry, which basically accomplishes that but awkwardly and with poor visibility onto the pasted items in the tiny Entry box. I have explored Listbox, which doesn't allow user input in the way of generating a new list from nothing?

The running example is: if I want to input some groceries into a variable, I can copy-paste a text list and paste as one item (rather than separately) --

eg: ["apples", "oranges", "raspberries"] clicks submit VS ["apples"] clicks submit ["oranges"] clicks submit ["raspberries"] clicks submit

-- Anyone have any recommendations for that elusive textarea-like input box for tkinter? Do I just wrestle with the Entry tiny box?

share a minimal example? How about just taking: `apples,oranges,raspberries` and use `inputfrombox.split(",")` to get a list? — Anton vBR, Nov 20 '17 at 21:56
My issue isn't with the extracting into a list of strings - it's how the user is able to copy paste a list into the tk interface. — Ksofiac, Nov 20 '17 at 21:58
are you looking for a [`tkinter.Text`](http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/text.html)? — Adam Smith, Nov 20 '17 at 21:58
Copied from where? The clipboard has no concept of a "list", it can only ever be a string. — Novel, Nov 20 '17 at 21:59

Adam Smith · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-20T22:37:51.347

3

You want a tkinter.Text

import tkinter as tk

# proof of concept
root = tk.Tk()
textarea = tk.Text(root)
textarea.pack()
root.mainloop()

You can retrieve the text with textarea.get in the normal way

result = textarea.get(1.0, 'end')     # get everything
result = textarea.get(1.0, 'end-1c')  # get exactly what the user entered
                                      # (minus the trailing newline)

edited Nov 20 '17 at 22:37

answered Nov 20 '17 at 22:00

Adam Smith

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You might want to also mention that if you split on newlines, the data will be a list. Also, you normally want to used `end-1c` rather than `end`, since the latter will pick up an extra newline that tkinter adds automatically, `end-1c` is the canonical way to get exactly what the user entered. – Bryan Oakley Nov 20 '17 at 22:09
@BryanOakley OP seemed confident he could manipulate the text to his desired result once he knew how to build that result, so I'm going to leave the `splitlines` out, however I included your comment there (I actually didn't know that, I've always rstripped after getting!) – Adam Smith Nov 20 '17 at 22:39

Python Tkinter Entry List Impossible?

1 Answers1