python - How to stop Tkinter Text widget resize on font change?

Question

I'm trying to create a simple word processor for starters to learn Python a bit better.

I'm using the Tkinter Text widget for the main editing program, the only problem is the height and width are defined by characters.

This creates a problem when I change fonts, for not all fonts are the same width.

Every time the font is changed, the Text widget re-sizes, although technically it is the same width and height. This looks ridiculous when trying to type up something, I'm trying to make the word processor as nice as possible.

Is there a way to define the width and height in pixels?

the .grid_propagate(False) is not useful for the size is technically not changing, only the character width.

I'm trying to stay away from wxPython for now, since everything I've done up to this point has been in Tkinter.

I have done endless hours of extensive googling but have found no solutions.

Answer 1

You are wrong when you say you can't use grid_propagate(False), because you can. grid_propagate is related to the actual size, not the size attribute. Also, if you simply give your application a fixed size using wm_geometry, font changes won't affect the size of the window.

Here's an example using grid_propagate, which sets the container to a fixed size in pixels:

import Tkinter as tk
import tkFont

class SampleApp(tk.Tk):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        tk.Tk.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
        self._textFont = tkFont.Font(name="TextFont")
        self._textFont.configure(**tkFont.nametofont("TkDefaultFont").configure())

        toolbar = tk.Frame(self, borderwidth=0)
        container = tk.Frame(self, borderwidth=1, relief="sunken", 
                             width=600, height=600)
        container.grid_propagate(False)
        toolbar.pack(side="top", fill="x")
        container.pack(side="bottom", fill="both", expand=True)

        container.grid_rowconfigure(0, weight=1)
        container.grid_columnconfigure(0, weight=1)
        text = tk.Text(container, font="TextFont")
        text.grid(row=0, column=0, sticky="nsew")

        zoomin = tk.Button(toolbar, text="+", command=self.zoom_in)
        zoomout = tk.Button(toolbar, text="-", command=self.zoom_out)
        zoomin.pack(side="left")
        zoomout.pack(side="left")

        text.insert("end", '''Press te + and - buttons to increase or decrease the font size''')

    def zoom_in(self):
        font = tkFont.nametofont("TextFont")
        size = font.actual()["size"]+2
        font.configure(size=size)

    def zoom_out(self):
        font = tkFont.nametofont("TextFont")
        size = font.actual()["size"]-2
        font.configure(size=max(size, 8))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = SampleApp()
    app.mainloop()