Question

I’ve been tinkering around with Python lately and wanted to make a GUI that reads from a CSV and displays it correctly.

CSV build up:

name,description,image location
steven,some guy,/res/pic/steven.gif

the first two entries should be put in text labels, and the last entry should be used as an image.
In my code I got as far as inserting the picture, which worked. But as soon as I also embedded the text label, I think the application runs into an infinity loop.
If I delete the Image from the code, the text label works and vice versa.

from Tkinter import *
from PIL import *
import os
import csv

#Functions 

def insertImage(guiName,picture,x,y):

    #This is the Image label insertion, delete it and Text label works
    img = PhotoImage(file=entryList[picture][2])
    preview = Label(guiName, image=img)
    preview.img = img
    preview.grid(row=x,column=y)

    #This is the Text label insertion, delete it and Image Label works        
    Name = StringVar()
    labelName = Label(mainGUI, textvariable=Name, justify=LEFT)
    Name.set(entryList[picture][2])
    labelName.pack()

global mainGUI
mainGUI = Tk()
mainGUI.geometry("500x500")
mainGUI.title('Index')

reader = csv.reader(open("res/test.csv", "rb"))
entryList = []
for row in reader:
    entryList.append( row )

#insertImage(mainGUI,entryList[1][2],1,1)
insertImage(mainGUI,1,1,1)
#insertImage(mainGUI,2,2,1)

mainGUI.mainloop()

Does anyone have an idea what the problem might be?

Answer 1

The problem is that you are using grid() and pack() to position widgets within the same master widget (mainGUI). That won’t work, because by default both of those geometry managers attempt to manage the size of the parent widget and end up fighting over the size (which blocks the GUI from ever appearing as a side effect).

The very latest version of Tk (the lib underneath Tkinter) will throw an error if you try to do this (finally!) but your best bet is to just use one geometry manager per parent widget. (There are some subtleties with disabling geometry propagation which can make this work, and “parent” can be a touch tricky in a few situations, but the key issue is that you’re doing the wrong thing in the first place.)

Also, a single label can contain both an image and some text; see the compound option (which enables this and controls the relative placement rules).