How To Bind The Enter Key To A Tkinter Window?

Tkinter is a Python library to develop GUI applications. Tkinter has many useful widgets that are necessary to build desktop applications. In this article, we will learn how to bind an Entry widget with a Tkinter Window.

Binding Key in Tkinter

A key event occurs when the user clicks on any key on their keyboard. An action can be performed when any key is pressed in the Tkinter window. Every key has a modifier name within <> that has to be bound to perform any action in the Tkinter window.

In Tkinter, you can bind keys using the bind method of a widget or the main window. The '<Key>' is the key event and function is the callback function that will be executed when the key is pressed.

widget.bind('<Key>', function)

Binding Enter Key to Tkinter Window

Now let us see a step by step process to bind the Enter key to a Tkinter widget in Python.

Import Module

The first step is to import the Tkinter module, which is used to create the main window application and other widgets.

import tkinter as tk

Create Application Window

Next, create the main application window using tk.Tk() class. It is the parent or root window that contains all other Tkinter widgets such as buttons, labels, entries, etc. We can also provide a title and dimensions for the Tkinter window.

root = tk.Tk()
root.title("title_to_display")

Create The Widget

Create and add any necessary widget to the Tkinter application window.

entry = tk.Entry(root)
entry.pack()

Bind Enter Key

Next we bind the enter key to Tkinter window. We can also bind the enter key to a widget, such as a Label or an Entry widget. Wehn the user presses the Enter key, the bind() function triggers the function that is passed to it as a second parameter. The modifier name for the 'Enter' key in the keyboard is <Return>.

root.bind('<Return>', function_name)

Run the Application

Finally, run the main event loop to display the window and make the application responsive to user interactions.

root.mainloop()

Examples of Binding Enter Key to Tkinter Window

Here, we will see a few different examples demonstrating how to bind the Enter keyto Tkinter window.

Binding Enter Key to Tkinter Window

In this example, we will bind the Enter key to the main Tkinter window. This means, when the application is run and the user presses the Enter key, the bind() function calls the function named 'key_handler_function()'. This function will print a message on the screen when the Enter key is pressed.

# importing tkinter
import tkinter as tk

# function to run on pressing
# 'ENTER' key from keyboard.
def key_handler_function(event):
    print("You clicked ENTER key in your keyboard")

# main application window
root = tk.Tk()
root.title("GeeksForGeeks")
root.geometry("300x200")


# Binding ENTER key to function
root.bind("<Return>", key_handler_function)

# run the application
root.mainloop()

Output:

Binding Enter Key to Tkinter Widget

In this example, we will create and add two widgets to our Tkinter Window, Entry and Label. When the user enters some data into the entry widget and presses ENTER key, the bind function called the 'key_handler_function()' and it updates the Label with the text entered by the user.

# importing tkinter
import tkinter as tk

# function to run on pressing
# 'ENTER' key from keyboard.
def key_handler_function(event):
    label.config(text=entry.get())

# main application window
root = tk.Tk()
root.title("GeeksForGeeks")
root.geometry("300x200")

# creating widgets
entry = tk.Entry(root)
label = tk.Label(root, text="GeeksForGeeks")
entry.pack()
label.pack()


# Binding ENTER key to function
entry.bind("<Return>", key_handler_function)

# run the application
root.mainloop()

Output:

Conclusion

Binding the Enter key to a Tkinter window or widget enhances the user experience by enabling keyboard interactions. By understanding and utilizing key bindings, we can create more intuitive and user-friendly Tkinter applications.

reshmah

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Article Tags :

• Python
• Python-tkinter

Practice Tags :

• python