https://github.com/asrp/tkui

A visual introspective GUI maker with live editing of the GUI and its editor at the same time
https://github.com/asrp/tkui

Last synced: about 2 months ago
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A visual introspective GUI maker with live editing of the GUI and its editor at the same time

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/asrp/tkui
• Owner: asrp
• Created: 2017-02-18T06:35:48.000Z (over 7 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2018-03-18T14:25:47.000Z (over 6 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-02-14T22:37:13.863Z (7 months ago)
• Language: Python
• Size: 82 KB
• Stars: 188
• Watchers: 6
• Forks: 11
• Open Issues: 1
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md

Awesome Lists containing this project

• awesome-discoveries - tkui - a visual introspective GUI maker with live editing of GUI and its editor _(`Python`)_ (Dev Tools with GUI)

README

        
# tkui - a visual introspective GUI maker with live editing of the GUI and its editor at the same time

## Installation and running

    pip install -r requirements.txt

which installs the dependencies [uielem](https://github.com/asrp/uielem) and [undoable](https://github.com/asrp/undoable). Run

    python guided_tour.py

to start the guided tour which gives an idea of how the pieces work.

To start the default editor instead:

    python tkui.py

Note that both need to be started from the `tkui` directory.

## Rationale and intended use

Its easier to make a GUI if you can visually see the result immediately and there are a few editors that allows this. But why should the GUI editor itself be off limits? What if you suddenly want to add many new objects of a certain type to your GUI? This is something that would need adding a feature to the editor. tkui lets you do this with no need to recompile, no need to even restart the program.

The guided tour explains this by showing it: The intended way to use tkui is to start `python tkui.py`, create a root `tk.Frame` or `tk.Toplevel` somewhere (anywhere) where the new UI you're making will be. Then add to that root element through, save everything under the root using the `gencode` function and then use the generated code for UI layout in your program.

For things with callbacks, edit `functions.py` (`tour_functions.py` in the guided tour) and reload it (using the "Reload" button or `execfile("functions")`). This way you can see right away if the new function works or not.

Some widgets are available for wrapping Python values directly (`BoxedList`, `BoxedBool`, `BoxedDict`).

## History

`tkui` is the result of a bad joke gone too far. Just wanted to see how self-referential I could make it. After that, a guided tour instead of documentation seemed self-referentially appropriate.

## Todo

- Finish explaining what everything does in the guided tour.

- Think of other visual representations of `list` and `dict`, especially `dict.

- Repackage a lot of the global state (into classes or other).

- Determine what works and doesn't work with undo/redo and make more things work.