tkinter convenience dialogs don't use themed widgets

[mark-summerfield]

BPO	15191
Nosy	@terryjreedy, @mark-summerfield, @roseman

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2012-06-26.08:41:33.265>
labels = ['type-feature', 'expert-tkinter']
title = "tkinter convenience dialogs don't use themed widgets"
updated_at = <Date 2015-09-18.16:29:17.391>
user = 'https://github.com/mark-summerfield'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2015-09-18.16:29:17.391>
actor = 'markroseman'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Tkinter']
creation = <Date 2012-06-26.08:41:33.265>
creator = 'mark'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 15191
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['164057', '164444']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['terry.reedy', 'mark', 'markroseman']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue15191'
versions = ['Python 3.4']

Linked PRs

• gh-59396: Modernize tkinter.simpledialog #151848
• gh-59396: Use themed widgets in tkinter.filedialog #152036

[mark-summerfield]

Some of the tkinter convenience dialogs, e.g., tkinter.filedialog.FileDialog, tkinter.scrolledtext.ScrolledText, tkinter.simpledialog.SimpleDialog, tkinter.simpledialog.Dialog, and tkinter.simpledialog._QueryDialog. Ideally they should use ttk.Frame, ttk.Button, etc. Or if that is risky for compatibility, then couldn't they be copied to tkinter.ttk and the copies themized?

[terryjreedy]

It has been agreed that IDLE could assume tk8.5 (or possibly 8.4 + tile extension) and use themed widgets (though it is not yet) and not run otherwise. Further discussion would be needed to do the same for tkinter, but maybe by 3.4 that might be reasonable.

[serhiy-storchaka]

#151848 updates the implementation of SimpleDialog and Dialog to match the look and feel of ::tk_dialog and ::tk::MessageBox. Both classes got the use_ttk parameter which controls the set of used widgets and their layout. SimpleDialog got also few other features. FileDialog was left for the follow up PR.

SimpleDialog and query dialogs use ttk by default (like most of native Tk dialogs). Dialog uses classic widgets by default, because user's classic widgets in body() look ugly on ttk.Frame. So this was left on user.

The base patch was written in 2020 against 8.6, but I was overloaded and distracted. Then I updated it to 9.0, 9.1, and with help of Claude Code was able to finish it (so the documentation is better than what I usually wrote).