How to show live mouse position on tkinter window

Question

i would like to know if there was a way to keep showing the live mouse position on a tkinter window. I know how to find mouse coordinates.

x, y = win32api.GetCursorPos()
mousecords = Label(self.root, text='x : ' + str(x) + ', y : ' + str(y))
mousecords.place(x=0, y=0)

But I need the label to keep updating as and when the mouse moves. Help will be appreciated Thank you!

You don't need win32api to get the cursor coordinates. Tkinter has methods to do that in a cross-platform way. — Bryan Oakley, Aug 19 '20 at 14:30

Mandera · Answer 1 · 2020-08-19T14:43:31.067

3

This will only update the Label when the mouse is inside the tkinter window:

No need to use win32api, tkinter has it built in. We can bind a function to root's <Motion> key and use the given positional argument event to retrieve the coordinates of the mouse.

from tkinter import Tk, Label

root = Tk()
label = Label(root)
label.pack()
root.bind("<Motion>", lambda event: label.configure(text=f"{event.x}, {event.y}"))
root.mainloop()

edited Aug 19 '20 at 14:43

answered Aug 19 '20 at 11:16

Mandera

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Why are you calling `__setitem__`? That's not designed to be called externally. You should use the standard `configure` method (`label.configure(text=...)` – Bryan Oakley Aug 19 '20 at 14:30
Ah I've always used `label["text"] = ...`, but since I wanted my example to be compact with a `lambda` I assumed I had to use `__setitem__`. I'll change it to `configure`, thanks! – Mandera Aug 19 '20 at 14:41
1

You could use `label["text"]` here if you want, and would actually be slightly more compact. Personally I prefer `configure`. – Bryan Oakley Aug 19 '20 at 14:44

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 19 '20 at 11:09

You can use after() to periodically get the mouse coordinates and update the label.

Below is an example:

import tkinter as tk
import win32api

root = tk.Tk()

mousecords = tk.Label(root)
mousecords.place(x=0, y=0)

def show_mouse_pos():
    x, y = win32api.GetCursorPos()
    #x, y = mousecords.winfo_pointerxy() # you can also use tkinter to get the mouse coords
    mousecords.config(text=f'x : {x}, y : {y}')
    mousecords.after(50, show_mouse_pos) # call again 50ms later

show_mouse_pos() # start the update task
root.mainloop()

This is going to use a bunch of cpu cycles even if the mouse isn't moving. It's not a very efficient solution. — Bryan Oakley, Aug 19 '20 at 14:31

How to show live mouse position on tkinter window

2 Answers2