python - Other option for colored scrollbar in tkinter based program?

Question

So after hours or reading post and looking at the documentation for tkinter I have found that on windows machines the color options for tkinter scrollbar will not work due to the scrollbar getting its theme from windows directly. My problem is the color of the default theme really clashes with my program and I am trying to find a solution that does not involve importing a different GUI package such as PyQt (I don't have access to pip at work so this is a problem to get new packages)

Aside from using a separate package can anyone point me towards some documentation on how to write my own sidebar for scrolling through the text widget. All I have found so far that is even close to what I want to be able to do is an answer on this question. (Changing the apperance of a scrollbar in tkinter using ttk styles)

From what I can see the example is only changing the background of the scrollbar and with that I was still unable to use the example. I got an error on one of the lines used to configure the style.

    style.configure("My.Horizontal.TScrollbar", *style.configure("Horizontal.TScrollbar"))
TypeError: configure() argument after * must be an iterable, not NoneType

Not sure what to do with this error because I was just following the users example and I am not sure as to why it worked for them but not for me.

What I have tried so far is:

How I create my text box and the scrollbars to go with it.

root.text = Text(root, undo = True)
root.text.grid(row = 0, column = 1, columnspan = 1, rowspan = 1, padx =(5,5), pady =(5,5), sticky = W+E+N+S)
root.text.config(bg = pyFrameColor, fg = "white", font=('times', 16))
root.text.config(wrap=NONE)
vScrollBar = tkinter.Scrollbar(root, command=root.text.yview)
hScrollBar = tkinter.Scrollbar(root, orient = HORIZONTAL, command=root.text.xview)
vScrollBar.grid(row = 0, column = 2, columnspan = 1, rowspan = 1, padx =1, pady =1, sticky = E+N+S)
hScrollBar.grid(row = 1 , column = 1, columnspan = 1, rowspan = 1, padx =1, pady =1, sticky = S+W+E)
root.text['yscrollcommand'] = vScrollBar.set
root.text['xscrollcommand'] = hScrollBar.set

Following the documentation here My attempt below does not appear to do anything on windows machine. As I have read on other post this has to do with the scrollbar getting its theme natively from windows.

vScrollBar.config(bg = mainBGcolor)
vScrollBar['activebackground'] = mainBGcolor
hScrollBar.config(bg = mainBGcolor)
hScrollBar['activebackground'] = mainBGcolor

I guess it all boils down to:

Is it possible to create my own sidebar (with colors I can change per theme) without the need to import other python packages? If so, where should I start or can someone please link me to the documentation as my searches always seam to lead me back to Tkinter scrollbar Information. As these config() options do work for linux they do not work for windows.

Answer 1

not a complete answer, but have you considered creating your own scrollbar lookalike:

import tkinter as tk

class MyScrollbar(tk.Canvas):
    def __init__(self, master, *args, **kwargs):
        if 'width' not in kwargs:
            kwargs['width'] = 10
        if 'bd' not in kwargs:
            kwargs['bd'] = 0
        if 'highlightthickness' not in kwargs:
            kwargs['highlightthickness'] = 0
        self.command = kwargs.pop('command')
        
        tk.Canvas.__init__(self, master, *args, **kwargs)
        
        self.elements = {   'button-1':None,
                            'button-2':None,
                            'trough':None,
                            'thumb':None}
        
        self._oldwidth = 0
        self._oldheight = 0
        
        self._sb_start = 0
        self._sb_end = 1
        
        self.bind('<Configure>', self._resize)
        self.tag_bind('button-1', '<Button-1>', self._button_1)
        self.tag_bind('button-2', '<Button-1>', self._button_2)
        self.tag_bind('trough', '<Button-1>', self._trough)
        
        self._track = False
        self.tag_bind('thumb', '<ButtonPress-1>', self._thumb_press)
        self.tag_bind('thumb', '<ButtonRelease-1>', self._thumb_release)
        self.tag_bind('thumb', '<Leave>', self._thumb_release)
        
        self.tag_bind('thumb', '<Motion>', self._thumb_track)
            
    def _sort_kwargs(self, kwargs):
        for key in kwargs:
            if key in ['buttontype', 'buttoncolor', 'troughcolor', 'thumbcolor', 'thumbtype']:
                self._scroll_kwargs[key] = kwargs.pop(key) # add to custom dict and remove from canvas dict
        return kwargs
                
    def _resize(self, event):
        width = self.winfo_width()
        height = self.winfo_height()
#       print("canvas: (%s, %s)" % (width, height))
        if self.elements['button-1']: # exists
            if self._oldwidth != width:
                self.delete(self.elements['button-1'])
                self.elements['button-1'] = None
            else:
                pass
        if not self.elements['button-1']: # create
            self.elements['button-1'] = self.create_oval((0,0,width, width), fill='#006cd9', outline='#006cd9', tag='button-1')
            
            
        if self.elements['button-2']: # exists
            coords = self.coords(self.elements['button-2'])
            if self._oldwidth != width:
                self.delete(self.elements['button-2'])
                self.elements['button-2'] = None
            elif self._oldheight != height:
                self.move(self.elements['button-2'], 0, height-coords[3])
            else:
                pass
        if not self.elements['button-2']: # create
            self.elements['button-2'] = self.create_oval((0,height-width,width, height), fill='#006cd9', outline='#006cd9', tag='button-2')
        
        if self.elements['trough']: # exists
            coords = self.coords(self.elements['trough'])
            if (self._oldwidth != width) or (self._oldheight != height):
                self.delete(self.elements['trough'])
                self.elements['trough'] = None
            else:
                pass
        if not self.elements['trough']: # create
            self.elements['trough'] = self.create_rectangle((0,int(width/2),width, height-int(width/2)), fill='#00468c', outline='#00468c', tag='trough')

        self.set(self._sb_start, self._sb_end) # hacky way to redraw thumb
        self.tag_raise('thumb') # ensure thumb always on top of trough
            
        self._oldwidth = width
        self._oldheight = height
        
    def _button_1(self, event):
        self.command('scroll', -1, 'pages')
        return 'break'
    
    def _button_2(self, event):
        self.command('scroll', 1, 'pages')
        return 'break'
        
    def _trough(self, event):
        width = self.winfo_width()
        height = self.winfo_height()
        
        size = (self._sb_end - self._sb_start) / 1
        
        thumbrange = height - width
        thumbsize = int(thumbrange * size)
        thumboffset = int(thumbrange * self._sb_start) + int(width/2)
        
        thumbpos = int(thumbrange * size / 2) + thumboffset
        if event.y < thumbpos:
            self.command('scroll', -1, 'pages')
        elif event.y > thumbpos:
            self.command('scroll', 1, 'pages')
        return 'break'
    
    def _thumb_press(self, event):
        print("thumb press: (%s, %s)" % (event.x, event.y))
        self._track = True
        
    def _thumb_release(self, event):
        print("thumb release: (%s, %s)" % (event.x, event.y))
        self._track = False
        
    def _thumb_track(self, event):
        if self._track:
#           print("*"*30)
            print("thumb: (%s, %s)" % (event.x, event.y))
            width = self.winfo_width()
            height = self.winfo_height()
        
#           print("window size: (%s, %s)" % (width, height))
        
            size = (self._sb_end - self._sb_start) / 1
#           print('size: %s' % size)
            thumbrange = height - width
#           print('thumbrange: %s' % thumbrange)
            thumbsize = int(thumbrange * size)
#           print('thumbsize: %s' % thumbsize)
            clickrange = thumbrange - thumbsize
#           print('clickrange: %s' % clickrange)
            thumboffset = int(thumbrange * self._sb_start) + int(width/2)
#           print('thumboffset: %s' % thumboffset)
        
            thumbpos = int(thumbrange * size / 2) + thumboffset
        
#           print("mouse point: %s" % event.y)
#           print("thumbpos: %s" % thumbpos)
        
            point = (event.y - (width/2) - (thumbsize/2)) / clickrange
#           point = (event.y - (width / 2)) / (thumbrange - thumbsize)
#           print(event.y - (width/2))
#           print(point)
            if point < 0:
                point = 0
            elif point > 1:
                point = 1
#           print(point)
            self.command('moveto', point)
            return 'break'
        
    def set(self, *args):
        oldsize = (self._sb_end - self._sb_start) / 1
        
        self._sb_start = float(args[0])
        self._sb_end = float(args[1])
        
        size = (self._sb_end - self._sb_start) / 1
        
        width = self.winfo_width()
        height = self.winfo_height()
        
        if oldsize != size:
            self.delete(self.elements['thumb'])
            self.elements['thumb'] = None
        
        thumbrange = height - width
        thumbsize = int(thumbrange * size)
        thumboffset = int(thumbrange * self._sb_start) + int(width/2)
        
        if not self.elements['thumb']: # create
            self.elements['thumb'] = self.create_rectangle((0, thumboffset,width, thumbsize+thumboffset), fill='#4ca6ff', outline='#4ca6ff', tag='thumb')
        else: # move
            coords = self.coords(self.elements['thumb'])
            if (thumboffset != coords[1]):
                self.move(self.elements['thumb'], 0, thumboffset-coords[1])
        return 'break'
        
if __name__ == '__main__':
    root = tk.Tk()
    lb = tk.Listbox(root)
    lb.pack(side='left', fill='both', expand=True)
    for num in range(0,100):
        lb.insert('end', str(num))
        
    sb = MyScrollbar(root, width=50, command=lb.yview)
    sb.pack(side='right', fill='both', expand=True)
    
    lb.configure(yscrollcommand=sb.set)
    root.mainloop()

I've left my comments in, and for the life of me i can't seem to get click and dragging the thumb to work correctly, but its a simple scrollbar with the following features:

• up and down buttons that can be coloured
• thumb and trough that can be individually coloured
• tracks movement in scrollable widget
• thumb resizes with size of scroll area

Edit

I've revised the thumb code to fix the click and drag scrolling:

import tkinter as tk

class MyScrollbar(tk.Canvas):
    def __init__(self, master, *args, **kwargs):
        self._scroll_kwargs = { 'command':None,
                                'orient':'vertical',
                                'buttontype':'round',
                                'buttoncolor':'#006cd9',
                                'troughcolor':'#00468c',
                                'thumbtype':'rectangle',
                                'thumbcolor':'#4ca6ff',
                                }
        
        kwargs = self._sort_kwargs(kwargs)
        if self._scroll_kwargs['orient'] == 'vertical':
            if 'width' not in kwargs:
                kwargs['width'] = 10
        elif self._scroll_kwargs['orient'] == 'horizontal':
            if 'height' not in kwargs:
                kwargs['height'] = 10
        else:
            raise ValueError
        if 'bd' not in kwargs:
            kwargs['bd'] = 0
        if 'highlightthickness' not in kwargs:
            kwargs['highlightthickness'] = 0
        
        tk.Canvas.__init__(self, master, *args, **kwargs)
        
        self.elements = {   'button-1':None,
                            'button-2':None,
                            'trough':None,
                            'thumb':None}
        
        self._oldwidth = 0
        self._oldheight = 0
        
        self._sb_start = 0
        self._sb_end = 1
        
        self.bind('<Configure>', self._resize)
        self.tag_bind('button-1', '<Button-1>', self._button_1)
        self.tag_bind('button-2', '<Button-1>', self._button_2)
        self.tag_bind('trough', '<Button-1>', self._trough)
        
        self._track = False
        self.tag_bind('thumb', '<ButtonPress-1>', self._thumb_press)
        self.bind('<ButtonRelease-1>', self._thumb_release)
#       self.bind('<Leave>', self._thumb_release)
        
        self.bind('<Motion>', self._thumb_track)
            
    def _sort_kwargs(self, kwargs):
        to_remove = []
        for key in kwargs:
            if key in [ 'buttontype', 'buttoncolor', 'buttonoutline',
                        'troughcolor', 'troughoutline',
                        'thumbcolor', 'thumbtype', 'thumboutline',
                        'command', 'orient']:
                self._scroll_kwargs[key] = kwargs[key] # add to custom dict
                to_remove.append(key)
                
        for key in to_remove:
            del kwargs[key]
        return kwargs
        
    def _get_colour(self, element):
        if element in self._scroll_kwargs: # if element exists in settings
            return self._scroll_kwargs[element]
        if element.endswith('outline'): # if element is outline and wasn't in settings
            return self._scroll_kwargs[element.replace('outline', 'color')] # fetch default for main element
        
    def _width(self):
        return self.winfo_width() - 2 # return width minus 2 pixes to ensure fit in canvas
        
    def _height(self):
        return self.winfo_height() - 2 # return height minus 2 pixes to ensure fit in canvas
                
    def _resize(self, event):
        width = self._width()
        height = self._height()
        if self.elements['button-1']: # exists
            # delete element if vertical scrollbar and width changed
            # or if horizontal and height changed, signals button needs to change
            if (((self._oldwidth != width) and (self._scroll_kwargs['orient'] == 'vertical')) or