How to change ttk.Entry insertion cursor color?

Question

I am developing an application using Python3 and tkinter 8.6. Part of is a rather complex dialog which uses a dark background. The enclosed code employs only a few widgets to show the area I can not make work. Among other things my dialog makes obvious (by highlighted background color, just tab) the widget that has keyboard focus. I have tried every possible search string I could come up with for a solution, but to no avail. Turns out the 'insertwidth': '4' does work. The thing I want to so is change the color of the ttkEntry widget insertion point cursor. None of the suggested answers I have found seem to be a solution. Thanks in advance.

    #!/usr/bin/env python3
import tkinter as tk
import tkinter.ttk as ttk    # ttk widgets use styles
import tkinter.font as tkfont

def app_exit():
    root.destroy()


root = tk.Tk()
root.geometry('400x50+400+100')
bg = '#2C2B3B'    # dark blue
hlbg = '#3F3D5C'  # dark blue a shade lighter
fg = 'white'
ebg = 'pink'   # Entry inserts
root.configure(background=bg)  # fills in around labels and entries
font14 = tkfont.Font(size=14)
font10 = tkfont.Font(size=10)
root.option_add('*TEntry*Font', font14)
ttstyle = ttk.Style()
ttstyle.theme_use('default')
ttstyle.theme_settings('default', {
    '.': {   # this sets the general defaults for everybody
        'configure': {'font': font14, 'background': bg, 'foreground': fg}},
    'TButton': {
        'map': {'background': [('active', hlbg), ('focus', hlbg), ('!disabled', bg)]}},
    'TEntry': {  # 'insertforeground' and 'insertforeground' does not seem to do anything
        'configure': {'insertwidth': '4', 'insertforeground': ebg, 'insertforeground': ebg},
        'map': {'fieldbackground': [('active', hlbg), ('focus', hlbg), ('!disabled', bg)],
                'foreground': [('!disabled', fg)]}},
    'TLabel': {
        'configure': {'font': font10}}})

lbl1 = ttk.Label(root, text='Hello ')
tbx = ttk.Entry(root)
btnOK = ttk.Button(root, text='Exit', command=app_exit)

lbl1.grid(row=0, column=0, sticky='w')
tbx.grid(row=0, column=1, sticky='ew')
btnOK.grid(row=0, column=2, sticky='e')
tbx.insert(0,'AbCdEf')
tbx.focus()

root.mainloop()

Example output

All you want is the color of the insertion cursor to change right? make the line like `tbx = ttk.Entry(root,insertbackground='red')` — Delrius Euphoria, Aug 11 '20 at 18:26
That is one of the many things I tried, does not work (At least on my Ubuntu system). One of those insertforeground should have been a background. (I added that as an example of what I tried latter and made an editing error. Your suggestion blows an error on my system: File "/usr/lib/python3.8/tkinter/__init__.py", line 2567, in __init__ self.tk.call( _tkinter.TclError: unknown option "-insertbackground" — MelS, Aug 11 '20 at 18:53
okay wait dint notice that, say `tk.Entry()` instead of `ttk.Entry(...)` — Delrius Euphoria, Aug 11 '20 at 19:49

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 12 '20 at 20:13

4

The option for a ttk Entry widget is insertcolor.

...
'TEntry': {
    'configure': {..., 'insertcolor': ebg},
...

Here is a handy reference of all of the options for ttk widgets. It's on the tcler's wiki so the syntax is tcl rather than python, but the option names themselves are the same between languages.

Changing Widget Colors

answered Aug 12 '20 at 20:13

Bryan Oakley

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Bryan thank you so very much, it works, you will never believe how much time I spent on this. And thank for answering what was gonna be my next question with the reference. You are the man! – MelS Aug 12 '20 at 20:36
I up-voted you for the reference. I use something else, but the one you posted is much better. – OneMadGypsy Aug 13 '20 at 03:40

How to change ttk.Entry insertion cursor color?

1 Answers1