How can you change the default anchor, relx and rely for placing tkinter widgets?

Question

Many widgets in my program are placed like so:

widget.place(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor=CENTER)

So, I wanted to make this the default setup. I have tried:

root.option_add("*anchor", "center")#Putting CENTER returns an error
root.option_add("*relx", "0.5")
root.option_add("*rely", "0")

However, this does not work.

How could I achieve this?

I think you _can_ [override the method](https://stackoverflow.com/q/10829200/7032856) `place` for your convenience. — Nae, Feb 13 '18 at 14:37

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 13 '18 at 14:50

You can't change the default options without overriding the method, but a viable workaround would be simply defining a variable for that customization and simply pass that to the widgets that use it:

try:                        # In order to be able to import tkinter for
    import tkinter as tk    # either in python 2 or in python 3
except ImportError:
    import Tkinter as tk


if __name__ == '__main__':
    root = tk.Tk()
    customization = dict(relx=0.5, rely=0.5, anchor='center')
    my_list_of_widgets = list()
    for i in range(30):
        my_list_of_widgets.append(tk.Label(root, text=i))
        my_list_of_widgets[i].place(**customization)
    tk.mainloop()

Bryan Oakley · Answer 2 · 2018-02-13T13:58:41.963

0

You can't. The option database is for specifying widget attributes, not arguments to functions. There is no built-in mechanism for specifying the arguments to pack, place, grid, or any other tkinter functions.

edited Feb 13 '18 at 13:58

answered Feb 13 '18 at 13:45

Bryan Oakley

370,779
53
539
685

Are fonts widget attributes? – Anonymous Coder Feb 13 '18 at 13:46
@MilanTom: yes. – Bryan Oakley Feb 13 '18 at 13:47
So widget attributes are those that are specified in the actual widget's parameters. Eg: `Label(widget_attribute=x)`. – Anonymous Coder Feb 13 '18 at 13:49
Is there a way to do this without the option database @BryanOakley? – Anonymous Coder Feb 13 '18 at 13:51
@MilanTom: you can create your own custom command that calls the built-in command with whatever options you want. – Bryan Oakley Feb 13 '18 at 13:59

How can you change the default anchor, relx and rely for placing tkinter widgets?

2 Answers2