CustomTkinter library

With CustomTkinter you can create modern looking user interfaces in python with tkinter. CustomTkinter is a tkinter extension which provides extra ui-elements like the CTkButton, which can be used like a normal tkinter.Button, but can be customized with a border and round edges.

CustomTkinter also supports a light and dark theme, which can either be set manually or get controlled by the system appearance mode.

Installation

To use CustomTkinter, just place the /customtkinter folder from this repository next to your program, or install the module with pip:

pip3 install customtkinter

Update existing installation: pip3 install customtkinter --upgrade
(from time to time bugs are getting fixed and new features are added)

PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/customtkinter/

Example program (simple button):

To test customtkinter you can try this simple example with only a single button:

import tkinter
import customtkinter  # <- import the CustomTkinter module

root_tk = customtkinter.CTk()  # create CTk window like you do with the Tk window
root_tk.geometry("400x240")
root_tk.title("CustomTkinter Test")

def button_function():
    print("button pressed")

# Use CTkButton instead of tkinter Button
button = customtkinter.CTkButton(master=root_tk, corner_radius=10, command=button_function)
button.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

root_tk.mainloop()

which gives the following:

Use custom colors and shapes:

If you don't specify any colors, customtkinter uses the standard blue color theme in the light mode. You can change the appearance mode to dark by calling customtkinter.set_appearance_mode("Dark"). If you specify custom colors for CustomTkinter elements, then you can either use a tuple in the form: (light_color, dark_color). Or you can set a single color which will be used in light and dark appearance mode.

customtkinter.set_appearance_mode("Dark") # Other: "Light", "System"

button = customtkinter.CTkButton(master=root_tk,
                                 fg_color=("black", "lightgray"),  # <- tuple color for light and dark theme
                                 text="CTkButton",
                                 command=button_event)
button.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

Dark mode and dark title-bar on macOS

If you have a python version with Tcl/Tk >= 8.6.9, then you automatically get a dark title bar with macOS dark-mode on, if you use the customtkinter.Ctk class to create the window instead of the normal tkinterTk class. Currently, only the anaconda python versions have Tcl/Tk >= 8.6.9. So if you want a dark window title-bar, you have to install anaconda python version or miniconda.

import tkinter
import customtkinter

customtkinter.set_appearance_mode("System")
root_tk = customtkinter.CTk()

... the program ...

root_tk.mainloop()

If you set the appearance mode to "System", it should change with the System mode:

Advanced example with multiple CTkFrames

Here I used the customtkinter.CTk() class to create the main window with two CTkFrame's and set the appearance mode to System. It has some kind of a menu on the left side, and I used all CustomTkinter elements there are at the moment. Maybe this is a good reference if you want to create your own application with this library. (Code: examples/complex_example.py)

With the green theme or the blue theme it looks like this:

Default color themes

If you don't set any colors at all you will get the standard blue color theme. But you can also change the standard color theme to green or dark-blue with the following command before you create the main window:

customtkinter.set_appearance_mode("System")
customtkinter.set_default_color_theme("dark-blue")  # Themes: "blue" (standard), "green", "dark-blue"

The color themes look like the following in light and dark mode:

CustomTkinter on Windows/Linux

All elements of Customtkinter are drawn on the tkinter.Canvas. But the Tkinter canvas supports antialiasing only on macOS (provided by the system), so on Windows and Linux the elements are rendered in a much worse quality. So you have to experiment with the corner_radius and decide when the rounded corners look best. I tried to design the too complex example programs so that they also look acceptable on Windows too. Maybe you can use the parameters for corner_radius and width for your program as well.

Example 1: examples/complex_example.py (light and dark mode)

In the following example I customized the elements with new colors, chnaged the corner_radius and added a border to the button.

Example 2: examples/complex_example_custom_colors.py (dark mode)

CTkButton with images

It's also possible to put an image on a CTkButton. You just have to pass a PhotoImage object to the CTkButton with the argument image. If you want no text at all you have to set text="" or with the compound option you can specify how to position both the text and image at once. You can find an example program ( /simple_test_images.py ), where I created two buttons with a bell and a settings image on them:

Integration of TkinterMapView widget

In the following example I used a TkinterMapView which integrates well with a CustomTkinter program. It's a tile based map widget which displays OpenStreetMap or other tile based maps:

You can find the TkinterMapView library and the example program here: https://github.com/TomSchimansky/TkinterMapView

Documentation - CustomTkinter Elements

CTk

You can use the normal tkinter.Tk class to create the root window, but if you want a background color that changes with the appearance mode and a dark title-bar on macOS, you should use the customtkinter.CTk class which behaves exactly like the normal Tk class, except that you can also set a tuple color as bg color.

Example Code:

root_tk = customtkinter.CTk()

... program ...

root_tk.mainloop()

Show all arguments and methods:

argument	value
bg_color or bg	tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color

CTk Methods:

root_tk = customtkinter.CTk()
# configure bg color with single or tuple color
root_tk.configure(bg_color="gray20")
root_tk.configure(bg_color=(<light-mode color>, <dark-mode color>))

CTkFrame

Example Code:

frame = customtkinter.CTkFrame(master=root_tk,
                               width=200,
                               height=200,
                               corner_radius=10)
frame.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

Show all arguments and methods:

argument	value
master	root, tkinter.Frame or CTkFrame
width	slider width in px
height	slider height in px
fg_color	foreground color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
bg_color	background color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color

CTkButton

Example Code:

def button_event():
    print("button pressed")

button = customtkinter.CTkButton(master=root_tk,
                                 width=120,
                                 height=32,
                                 border_width=0,
                                 corner_radius=8,
                                 text="CTkButton",
                                 command=button_event)
button.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

Show all arguments and methods:

argument	value
master	root, tkinter.Frame or CTkFrame
command	callback function
textvariable	tkinter.StringVar object to change text of button
text	string
width	button width in px
height	button height in px
corner_radius	corner radius in px
border_width	button border width in px
fg_color	forground color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
bg_color	background color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
border_color	border color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
hover_color	hover color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
text_color	text color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
text_font	button text font, tuple: (font_name, size)
hover	enable/disable hover effect: True, False
image	put an image on the button, removes the text, must be class PhotoImage
compound	set image orientation if image and text are given ("top", "left", "bottom", "right")
state	tkinter.NORMAL (standard) or tkinter.DISABLED (not clickable, darker color)

CTkButton Methods:

CTkButton.set_text(new_text)
CTkButton.set_image(new_image)
CTkButton.configure(text=new_text)
CTkButton.configure(bg_color=new_bg_color,
                    fg_color=new_fg_color,
                    hover_color=new_hover_color,
                    text_color=new_text_color)
CTkButton.configure(state=tkinter.DISABLED)
CTkButton.configure(state=tkinter.NORMAL)
button_state = CTkButton.state

CTkLabel

Example Code:

label = customtkinter.CTkLabel(master=root_tk,
                               text="CTkLabel",
                               width=120,
                               height=25,
                               corner_radius=8)
label.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

Show all arguments and methods:

argument	value
master	root, tkinter.Frame or CTkFrame
variable	tkinter.StringVar object
text	string
width	label width in px
height	label height in px
corner_radius	corner radius in px
fg_color	foreground color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
bg_color	background color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color, None for transparent bg
text_color	label text color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
text_font	label text font, tuple: (font_name, size)

CTkLabel Methods:

CTkLabel.configure(text=new_text)
CTkLabel.configure(fg_color=new_fg_color,
                   bg_color=new_bg_color,
                   text_color=new_text_color)

CTkEntry

Example Code:

entry = customtkinter.CTkEntry(master=root_tk,
                               placeholder_text="CTkEntry",
                               width=120,
                               height=25,
                               corner_radius=10)
entry.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

text = entry.get()

Show all arguments and methods:

argument	value
master	root, tkinter.Frame or CTkFrame
variable	tkinter.StringVar object
width	entry width in px
height	entry height in px
corner_radius	corner radius in px
fg_color	foreground color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
bg_color	background color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
text_color	entry text color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
placeholder_text_color	tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
placeholder_text	hint on the entry input (disappears when selected), default is None
text_font	entry text font, tuple: (font_name, size)

CTkEntry Methods:

CTkEntry.delete(...)  # like the standard tkinter Entry...
CTkEntry.insert(...)
text = CTkEntry.get()

CTkCheckBox

Examle Code:

checkbox = customtkinter.CTkCheckBox(master=root_tk,
                                     text="CTkCheckBox")
checkbox.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

Show all arguments and methods:

argument	value
master	root, tkinter.Frame or CTkFrame
text	string
width	box width in px
height	box height in px
corner_radius	corner radius in px
border_width	box border width in px
fg_color	foreground (inside) color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
bg_color	background color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
border_color	border color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
hover_color	hover color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
text_color	text color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
text_font	button text font, tuple: (font_name, size)
hover	enable/disable hover effect: True, False
state	tkinter.NORMAL (standard) or tkinter.DISABLED (not clickable, darker color)

CTkCheckBox Methods:

CTkCheckBox.get()  # 1 or 0 (checked or not checked)
CTkCheckBox.select()  # turns on checkbox
CTkCheckBox.deselect()  # turns off checkbox
CTkCheckBox.toggle()  # change check state of checkbox
CTkCheckBox.configure(text=new_text)
CTkCheckBox.configure(bg_color=new_bg_color,
                      fg_color=new_fg_color,
                      hover_color=new_hover_color,
                      text_color=new_text_color)
CTkCheckBox.configure(state=tkinter.DISABLED)
CTkCheckBox.configure(state=tkinter.NORMAL)
checkbox_state = CTkCheckBox.state

CTkSlider

Example Code:

def slider_event(value):
    print(value)

slider = customtkinter.CTkSlider(master=root_tk,
                                 width=160,
                                 height=16,
                                 border_width=5.5,
                                 from_=0,
                                 to=100,
                                 command=slider_event)
slider.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

Show all arguments and methods:

argument	value
master	root, tkinter.Frame or CTkFrame
command	callback function, gest called when slider gets changed
variable	tkinter.IntVar or tkinter.DoubleVar object
width	slider width in px
height	slider height in px
from_	lower slider value
to	upper slider value
number_of_steps	number of steps in which the slider can be positioned
border_width	space around the slider rail in px
fg_color	foreground color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
progress_color	tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color, colors the slider line before the round button and is set to fg_color by default
bg_color	background color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
border_color	slider border color, normally transparent (None)
button_color	color of the slider button, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
button_hover_color	hover color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color

CTkSlider Methods:

value = CTkSlider.get()
CTkSlider.set(value)

CTkProgressBar

Example Code:

progressbar = customtkinter.CTkProgressBar(master=root_tk,
                                           width=160,
                                           height=20,
                                           border_width=5)
progressbar.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=tkinter.CENTER)

progressbar.set(value)

Show all arguments and methods:

argument	value
master	root, tkinter.Frame or CTkFrame
width	slider width in px
height	slider height in px
border_width	border width in px
fg_color	foreground color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
bg_color	background color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
border_color	slider border color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color
progress_color	progress color, tuple: (light_color, dark_color) or single color

Special commands

Change appearance mode:

customtkinter.set_appearance_mode("Light")
customtkinter.set_appearance_mode("Dark")
customtkinter.set_appearance_mode("System")

print(customtkinter.get_appearance_mode())

Set default color theme:

customtkinter.set_default_color_theme("dark-blue")  # Themes: "blue" (standard), "green", "dark-blue"

Use macOS darkmode window style without using the customtkinter.Ctk class:

customtkinter.enable_macos_darkmode()  # get darkmode window style

 ... program ...

customtkinter.disable_macos_darkmode()  # disable darkmode (very important!)