How to embed a terminal in a Tkinter application?

Question

I want to embed a terminal in my main Tkinter window. I would like to have a sub window where a terminal (Bash based terminal) would run. I would like also to be able to let my program interact with the terminal, at least I would like to read the current working directory and/or set it.

I don't know if it is really impossible. I was able to do it in the past with Perl/Tk, so maybe it can be replicated here.

The code I used then was something like:

$frame3=$mw->Frame(-borderwidth=>2, -relief=>'groove', # -label=>'stuff for thought',
                             -labelBackground=>CADRAWWINCOLOR,-background=>CADRAWWINCOLOR);                 

$cv=$frame3->Canvas(-height=>$cvheight,-width=>$cvwidth,-background=>CADRAWWINCOLOR,
                             -bg => CADRAWWINCOLOR,
                             -relief => 'sunken')->pack(-expand => 1, -fill => 'both');
         
# this Frame is needed for including the xterm in Tk::Canvas 
my $xtermContainer = $cv->Frame(-container => 1);
my $xtid = $xtermContainer->id();
# converting the id from HEX to decimal as xterm requires a decimal Id
my ($xtId) = sprintf hex $xtid;
     
my $dcontitem = $cv->createWindow($xtermWidth/2,$xtermHeight/2,
                                       -window => $xtermContainer,
                                       -width => $xtermWidth,
                                       -height => $xtermHeight,
                                       -state => 'normal');
         
system("xterm -into $xtId -fn $fontname -geometry $geometry +sb -bg black -fg white -e ./xtermjob.pl $AAfname 5 &");

where $mw was the main Tk window.

Of course, I completely agree with Bryan: though I never programmed with a GUI library before, my program (rather large, a kind of wiki) is running very well, with a surprisingly low amount of code devoted to the GUI itself.

I tried translating this Perl code, but I'm stumbling on the ID problem.

The only place where I found some reference to a way to extract the ID from Tkinter is in Effbot, but when I use it, I get 'AttributeError: Frame instance has no attribute 'window_id', so there must be something wrong:

termf = Frame(root)
termf.pack(side=BOTTOM, fill=X)
id=termf.window_id()  
os.system("xterm -into %d -fn -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--8-80-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1 -geometry 150x150+0+0 +sb -bg black -fg white -e /root/.bashrc &" % id);

You can embed vte in a pygtk app, but I don't know of a similar thing in tkinter. Any particular reason you are using tkinter? — Keith
– Keith, Commented Aug 31, 2011 at 6:45
just the fact that I found it easier to learn than other widgets! — alessandro
– alessandro, Commented Aug 31, 2011 at 8:23
@Keith: why do you say pygtk has more of a future? Tkinter has been around a long time and is part of the python core. I don't see it being taken out of python for a very, very long time. — Bryan Oakley
– Bryan Oakley, Commented Aug 31, 2011 at 11:10
@Keith: I think you are wrong with the "only get so far" comment. I've created some very complex, successful commercial apps based of of Tk (admittedly, with tcl/tk rather than python/tkinter). The fact is, many, many applications don't need anything Tkinter doesn't provide, especially when you consider the addition of the ttk widgets in the most recent versions of Tkinter. — Bryan Oakley
– Bryan Oakley, Commented Aug 31, 2011 at 20:53
@Keith: you seem to imply that this is possible with pygtk. This question (stackoverflow.com/questions/5993390/…) asks how to do that in pygtk - could you answer it so we could see how to do it in your favorite toolkit? It's a tough problem to solve and I'd like to see how you do it in that toolkit. — Bryan Oakley
– Bryan Oakley, Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 11:00

nbro · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-06 17:50:12Z

38

I am happy to say that it is in fact possible to do it, and you can do it with just a few lines of code (I don't know if it is so easy with other toolkits):

from Tkinter import *
import os

root = Tk()
termf = Frame(root, height=400, width=500)

termf.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=YES)
wid = termf.winfo_id()
os.system('xterm -into %d -geometry 40x20 -sb &' % wid)

root.mainloop()

The problem before was to use the wrong function for wid.

edited Feb 6, 2015 at 17:50

nbro

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answered Sep 7, 2011 at 9:47

alessandro

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5 Comments

gnr Over a year ago

Is there any way to make the Frame automatically fit to the size of the xterm window (instead of hard-coding the height=400, width=500)

nbro Over a year ago

I am still not convinced if this code does what it is supposed to do on a Mac OS X, because what happens to me is that a Python shell section is started on xterm and nothing else (and only if I specify the whole path to xterm), I am not seeing what you want to achieve with this code... what does this code is supposed to do? For me the emulator is not inserted in the Frame, but it starts independently and an empty tkinter window runs at the same time..

alessandro Over a year ago

Xenomorph: I just tested it on my old Macbook, see imgur.com/SOXfyMb . I'm still with Snow Leopard, I dont know if it works for newer versions but it should

Tinmarino Over a year ago

If you want the xterm to be resized with the frame, you must add a callback: stackoverflow.com/a/59807248/2544873

martineau Over a year ago

The code in this answer is not portable. Windows, for example, does not have an xterm command (which it requires).

Cameron Laird · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-27 13:29:35Z

-1

Alessandro already reported five hours before what he regards as an adequate model. For those who come across this item during future searches, I'll record a few more background facts I know:

It was fortunate that Bryan was here to draw attention to the differences between window_id() and winfo_id(), and to counter the errors others made in writing about various toolkits.

It's interesting to me how stackoverflow compares to more specialized channels. In this case, the Tkinter mailing list http://mail.python.org/pipermail/tkinter-discuss/2011-September/002968.html swiftly and accurately responded to the question.

Tkinter would be an improvement on at least some of the moon-rocket software.

edited Sep 27, 2011 at 13:29

answered Sep 7, 2011 at 15:34

Cameron Laird

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1 Comment

Jamie Nicholl-Shelley Over a year ago

This is not an answer

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