tkinter app adding a right click context menu?

Question

I have a python-tkinter gui app that I've been trying to find some way to add in some functionality. I was hoping there would be a way to right-click on an item in the app's listbox area and bring up a context menu. Is tkinter able to accomplish this? Would I be better off looking into gtk or some other gui-toolkit?

Answer 1

You would create a Menu instance and write a function that calls
its post() or tk_popup() method.

The tkinter documentation doesn't currently have any information about tk_popup().
Read the Tk documentation for a description, or the source:

library/menu.tcl in the Tcl/Tk source:

 ::tk_popup -- This procedure pops up a menu and sets things up for traversing the menu and its submenus.  Arguments: menu  - Name of the menu to be popped up. x, y  - Root coordinates at which to pop up the menu.   entry - Index of a menu entry to center over (x,y).           If omitted or specified as {}, then menu's           upper-left corner goes at (x,y).   

tkinter/__init__.py in the Python source:

def tk_popup(self, x, y, entry=""):     """Post the menu at position X,Y with entry ENTRY."""     self.tk.call('tk_popup', self._w, x, y, entry) 

You associate your context menu invoking function with right-click via:
the_widget_clicked_on.bind("<Button-3>", your_function).

However, the number associated with right-click is not the same on every platform.

library/tk.tcl in the Tcl/Tk source:

 On Darwin/Aqua, buttons from left to right are 1,3,2.   On Darwin/X11 with recent XQuartz as the X server, they are 1,2,3;  other X servers may differ. 

Here is an example I wrote that adds a context menu to a Listbox:

import tkinter # Tkinter -> tkinter in Python 3  class FancyListbox(tkinter.Listbox):      def __init__(self, parent, *args, **kwargs):         tkinter.Listbox.__init__(self, parent, *args, **kwargs)          self.popup_menu = tkinter.Menu(self, tearoff=0)         self.popup_menu.add_command(label="Delete",                                     command=self.delete_selected)         self.popup_menu.add_command(label="Select All",                                     command=self.select_all)          self.bind("<Button-3>", self.popup) # Button-2 on Aqua      def popup(self, event):         try:             self.popup_menu.tk_popup(event.x_root, event.y_root, 0)         finally:             self.popup_menu.grab_release()      def delete_selected(self):         for i in self.curselection()[::-1]:             self.delete(i)      def select_all(self):         self.selection_set(0, 'end')   root = tkinter.Tk() flb = FancyListbox(root, selectmode='multiple') for n in range(10):     flb.insert('end', n) flb.pack() root.mainloop() 

The use of grab_release() was observed in an example on effbot.
Its effect might not be the same on all systems.

Answer 2

I made some changes to the conext menu code above in order to adjust my demand and I think it would be useful to share:

Version 1:

import tkinter as tk from tkinter import ttk  class Main(tk.Frame):     def __init__(self, master):         tk.Frame.__init__(self, master)         master.geometry('500x350')         self.master = master         self.tree = ttk.Treeview(self.master, height=15)         self.tree.pack(fill='x')         self.btn = tk.Button(master, text='click', command=self.clickbtn)         self.btn.pack()         self.aMenu = tk.Menu(master, tearoff=0)         self.aMenu.add_command(label='Delete', command=self.delete)         self.aMenu.add_command(label='Say Hello', command=self.hello)         self.num = 0          # attach popup to treeview widget         self.tree.bind("<Button-3>", self.popup)      def clickbtn(self):         text = 'Hello ' + str(self.num)         self.tree.insert('', 'end', text=text)         self.num += 1      def delete(self):         print(self.tree.focus())         if self.iid:             self.tree.delete(self.iid)      def hello(self):         print ('hello!')      def popup(self, event):         self.iid = self.tree.identify_row(event.y)         if self.iid:             # mouse pointer over item             self.tree.selection_set(self.iid)             self.aMenu.post(event.x_root, event.y_root)                     else:             pass  root = tk.Tk() app=Main(root) root.mainloop() 

Version 2:

import tkinter as tk from tkinter import ttk  class Main(tk.Frame):     def __init__(self, master):         master.geometry('500x350')         self.master = master         tk.Frame.__init__(self, master)         self.tree = ttk.Treeview(self.master, height=15)         self.tree.pack(fill='x')         self.btn = tk.Button(master, text='click', command=self.clickbtn)         self.btn.pack()         self.rclick = RightClick(self.master)         self.num = 0          # attach popup to treeview widget         self.tree.bind('<Button-3>', self.rclick.popup)     def clickbtn(self):         text = 'Hello ' + str(self.num)         self.tree.insert('', 'end', text=text)         self.num += 1  class RightClick:     def __init__(self, master):                 # create a popup menu         self.aMenu = tk.Menu(master, tearoff=0)         self.aMenu.add_command(label='Delete', command=self.delete)         self.aMenu.add_command(label='Say Hello', command=self.hello)          self.tree_item = ''      def delete(self):         if self.tree_item:             app.tree.delete(self.tree_item)      def hello(self):         print ('hello!')      def popup(self, event):         self.aMenu.post(event.x_root, event.y_root)         self.tree_item = app.tree.focus()  root = tk.Tk() app=Main(root) root.mainloop()