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File Tkinter dialogs (Python recipe) by Sébastien Sauvage
ActiveState Code (http://code.activestate.com/recipes/438123/)

Basic Tkinter dialogs for directory selection, file selection and so on. That's dirt simple (although the official documentation is not very explicit about these features).

Python, 35 lines
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# ======== Select a directory:

import Tkinter, tkFileDialog

root = Tkinter.Tk()
dirname = tkFileDialog.askdirectory(parent=root,initialdir="/",title='Please select a directory')
if len(dirname ) > 0:
    print "You chose %s" % dirname 


# ======== Select a file for opening:
import Tkinter,tkFileDialog

root = Tkinter.Tk()
file = tkFileDialog.askopenfile(parent=root,mode='rb',title='Choose a file')
if file != None:
    data = file.read()
    file.close()
    print "I got %d bytes from this file." % len(data)


# ======== "Save as" dialog:
import Tkinter,tkFileDialog

myFormats = [
    ('Windows Bitmap','*.bmp'),
    ('Portable Network Graphics','*.png'),
    ('JPEG / JFIF','*.jpg'),
    ('CompuServer GIF','*.gif'),
    ]

root = Tkinter.Tk()
fileName = tkFileDialog.asksaveasfilename(parent=root,filetypes=myFormats ,title="Save the image as...")
if len(fileName ) > 0:
    print "Now saving under %s" % nomFichier

Tkinter is provided with many standard file/directory dialogs. They are very handy, and very easy to use. I wrote these samples because I had some problem finding proper examples for this.

5 comments

Michael Foord 18 years, 9 months ago  # | flag

Pretty Good. If you think there is missing stuff in the standard library documentation then send your examples to the documetnation maintainers - who are always looking for more material.

Jason Drew 18 years, 2 months ago  # | flag

Same again, but without the main app window in the background. Nice reminder of these handy little functions. One improvement (for me anyway) is to remove the empty application window that pops up behind the file dialogs. If your program only needs the file dialogs and no other application window, that empty window is a distraction. The solution is to use the window manager's withdraw() method. E.g.

>>> import Tkinter, tkFileDialog
>>> root = Tkinter.Tk()
>>> root.withdraw()
''
>>> dirname = tkFileDialog.askdirectory(parent=root,initialdir="/",title='Pick a directory')

Then you'll get just the file dialog and nothing else.

The docstring for the withdraw method is:

>>> print Tkinter.Tk.withdraw.__doc__
Withdraw this widget from the screen such that it is unmapped and forgotten by the window manager. Re-draw it with wm_deiconify.
James Stroud 17 years, 1 month ago  # | flag

Good Recipe. As I've used this for every example today, good job! And I know Tkinter pretty well. Its good to have boilerplate like this come up easily via google.

fahadkalis 9 years, 2 months ago  # | flag

I writing a program in python on ubuntu, to remove a file by accessing RaspberryPi, connected with network. For file selection I am using a command called askopenfilename. But I am struggling in specifying the Path of RaspberryPi.

IP ="192.168.2.34" Username = "pi" Password ="raspberry" Path="/home/pi/python"

from tkFileDialog import askopenfilename
import paramiko

client = paramiko.SSHClient()
client.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
client.connect('192.168.2.34', username='pi', password='raspberry')

checkdir = "/home/pi/python"
name1= askopenfilename(title = "Select File For Removal", initialdir = checkdir)
stdin, stdout, stderr = client.exec_command('ls -l')
for line in stdout:
   print '... ' + line.strip('\n')
client.close()
Glenton Jelbert 9 years, 1 month ago  # | flag

Warning: One problem with this method is that it clashes with matplotlib.

For example, I made a simple script that would allow the user to select a file either to save a set of data or to load a set of data. def openFile() from Tkinter import Tk from tkFileDialog import askopenfilename Tk().withdraw() filename = askopenfilename() Tk().destroy() return pickle.load(open(filename,"r"))

This works fine. The dialog box opens up and the file is loaded into memory. However, if I then use this data to plot with matplotlib, the script will stop running. Typically I can show the graph, but the script will freeze after that.

If I collect the data by just typing the filename into a raw_input or something, the graph shows, and the script continues.