When building desktop applications using Python, tkinter is a popular choice for creating the graphical user interface (GUI). One common feature of many applications is a status bar that provides feedback and information to the user.

In this blog post, we will explore how to add a status bar to a tkinter application in Python, allowing you to display messages or information about the current state of your application.

Step 1: Import tkinter and create the main window

First, we need to import the tkinter module and create the main window for our application. This can be done using the following code:

import tkinter as tk

# Create the main window
root = tk.Tk()
root.title("My Application")

Step 2: Create the status bar

Next, we will create the status bar widget within our main window. The status bar widget in tkinter is typically implemented using a Label or Entry widget.

To create a Label widget for our status bar, we can use the following code:

# Create a status bar widget
status_bar = tk.Label(root, text="Ready", bd=1, relief=tk.SUNKEN, anchor=tk.W)
status_bar.pack(side=tk.BOTTOM, fill=tk.X)

In the above code, we create a Label widget called status_bar and set the text to “Ready”. We also set the bd (border) parameter to 1 and the relief parameter to tk.SUNKEN to give it a sunken appearance. The anchor parameter is set to tk.W to align the text to the left.

Finally, we use the pack() method to add the status bar widget to the bottom of the main window and make it fill the width of the window.

Step 3: Update the status bar text

To update the text of the status bar dynamically, we can define a function that takes a string as input and updates the text attribute of the status bar widget. Here’s an example:

def update_status_bar(text):
    status_bar.config(text=text)

Step 4: Test the status bar

To test our status bar implementation, we can create a simple button that changes the status bar text when clicked. Here’s an example:

def change_status_bar_text():
    update_status_bar("Button clicked!")

# Create a button
button = tk.Button(root, text="Click me!", command=change_status_bar_text)
button.pack()

# Run the tkinter main loop
root.mainloop()

In the above code, we define a function change_status_bar_text() that calls update_status_bar() with the desired text. We then create a Button widget called button that triggers the change_status_bar_text() function when clicked. Finally, we run the tkinter main loop to start the application.

That’s it! You have successfully added a status bar to your tkinter application in Python. You can customize the appearance and behavior of the status bar further based on your application’s requirements.

Feel free to explore additional tkinter documentation and resources to enhance your GUI application further. Happy coding!