Tkinter: How do I return the text within an Entry widget to a variable upon a Button press

Question

This is what I tried

GUI.py

from tkinter import *

class Search:
    def __init__(self, root):
        self.query = None
        self.root = root

        # Create and draw container
        self.frame = Frame(self.root)
        self.frame.pack()

        # Create widgets   
        self.search_bar = Entry(self.frame)
        self.search_button = Button(self.frame, command = self.get_query, text = 'Search')
        
        # Draw widgets
        self.search_bar.pack()
        self.search_button.pack()

    def get_query(self):
        self.query = self.search_bar.get()

def create_gui_root(): # Should I be doing this in a function in GUI.py?
    root = Tk()
    root.geometry('300x300')
    return root

main.py

from GUI import *

def use_query_to_do_stuff(query):
    print(query)

def main():
    # Create GUI root instance
    root = create_gui_root()

    # Initialize search page
    search_page = Search(root)

    # I know this part is wrong, just not sure where to go from here
    # It runs the search_submit method on start instead of waiting for the button to be pressed
    
    query = search_page.get_query()
    use_query_to_do_stuff(query)

    root.mainloop() # Also is this in the right place?

main()

I want the program to wait until I press the button, then assign the text inside the Entry widget to a variable.

I started off with a fully working text-based program in main.py and I'm trying to add a GUI.

I'm trying to learn how to split the logic and GUI into separate Python files so I import the Search class into the main.py file and I need GUI.py to return the search query back to main.py when the button is pressed.

I'm also unsure if I'm going about using classes and functions and separating logic from GUI the right way. Should I be using a bunch of functions instead of a class? Or am I using the class wrong? Are the root = Tk() and root.mainloop() lines even in the right place?

I thought of importing main.py into GUI.py, creating a method in Search() to call the function use_query_to_do_stuff() from main.py while passing self.search_bar.get() as a parameter directly, then binding that method to the self.search_button command. However, I feel like cross-importing your main.py file into your GUI.py is counter-intuitive, I kind of feel like all roads should 'lead back' to the main.py file, if that makes sense. Then again, maybe I'm completely lost.

I made main.py first and it ran as intended, but now that I'm trying to implement a GUI I feel like I'm going about everything slightly incorrectly.

toyota Supra · Answer 1 · 2022-12-17T14:35:09.277

Add Label in GUI.
Add label.configure in get_query(self) function

.

Snippet code:

# Create widgets   
self.search_bar = Entry(self.frame)
self.search_button = Button(self.frame, command = self.get_query, text = 'Search')
self.label = Label(self.frame)
 

# Draw widgets
self.search_bar.pack()
self.search_button.pack()
self.label.pack(padx=15, pady=35)

def get_query(self):
self.query = self.search_bar.get()
self.label.configure(text=self.query)
self.search_bar.delete(0, END)
print(self.query)

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Tkinter: How do I return the text within an Entry widget to a variable upon a Button press

1 Answers1