Change the GUI over time in Tkinter

Question

I am building a conway's game of life graphics using Tkinter in {ython. The game logic and everything else is fine, I just stuck on the last one part of code which I can't figure out even after reading the library.

self.after(1000,self.draw(bigThing))

Here is the full code:

from Tkinter import *
from button import *
import numpy
import test1
import time

class AppFrame(Frame):


def __init__(self,root, buttonlist):
    Frame.__init__(self, root, relief='sunken', width=600, height=600)
    self.gameisrunning = False
    self.buttonlist = buttonlist
    self.root = root

    self.w = Canvas(self,width = 505, height =505)


    self.boulis = []
    for k in range(1,101):
        for i in range(1, 101):

            button = Buttons(self.w, i * 5, k * 5, i * 5 + 5, k * 5 + 5,k ,i,buttonlist)
            self.boulis.append(button)


    self.whole = list(self.chunks(self.boulis, 100))

    self.grid(column =0, columnspan = 4)
    self.w.grid(column = 0)

    clear = Button(self.root,text = "clear")
    clear.grid(column = 0, row = 1)
    self.run = Button(self.root,text = "run", command = self.runit)
    self.run.grid(column = 3, row = 1)
    self.root.mainloop()

def runit(self):

    if self.gameisrunning == False:
        self.gameisrunning = True
        self.transformer = self.buttonlist
        while self.gameisrunning == True:
            bigThing = test1.theNextBigThing(self.transformer)
            self.transformer = bigThing
            self.root.after(1000,self.draw, bigThing)


    elif self.gameisrunning == True:
        self.gameisrunning = False


def draw (self, board):
    for k in range (0, 100):
        for i in range (0, 100):
            if board[k + 1][i + 1] == 1:
                self.whole[k][i].activate()
            elif board[k + 1][i + 1] == 0:
                self.whole[k][i].deactivate()

def chunks(self,l, n):
    """ Yield successive n-sized chunks from l.
    """
    for i in xrange(0, len(l), n):
        yield l[i:i+n]

I changed the structure a bit. It seems like anything I want to draw under the 'runit' method doesn't work. I don't know why it happens. All the other functions in 'runit' work perfectly fine. Only this didn't work:

self.root.after(1000,self.draw(bigThing))

Here is my button class:

##button.py
from Tkinter import *


class Buttons:

def __init__(self,canvas,bx,by,tx,ty, k, i,buttonlist):
    self.buttonlist = buttonlist
    self.canvas = canvas
    self.rec = canvas.create_rectangle((bx,by,tx,ty),fill = "lightgray",
                                       activefill= 'black', outline = 'lightgray')
    self.canvas.tag_bind(self.rec, "<Button-1>", lambda event: self.callback())
    self.active = False

    self.k = k
    self.i = i

    self.xmin = bx
    self.xmax = tx
    self.ymin = by
    self.ymax = ty
    ##print (bx, by, tx, ty)

def activate(self):
    self.canvas.itemconfigure(self.rec, fill = 'black')

def deactivate(self):
    self.canvas.itemconfig(self.rec, fill='lightgray')

def callback(self):
    self.activate()
    self.buttonlist[self.k][self.i] = 1

Answer 1

You're getting that error since your AppFrame.__init__ doesn't call the Frame superconstructor -- the AppFrame object is not a proper Tk object as a result. The code in that method seems to be combined with code that should be calling it and the Frame declared in it (self.f) should actually be self:

class AppFrame(Frame):
    def __init__(self, root, buttonlist):
        Frame.__init__(self, root, relief='sunken', width=600, height=600)
        self.root = root
        self.gameisrunning = False
        self.w = Canvas(self.f, width = 505, height =505)

        # [as before, but with self instead of self.f]

It's generally more modular to build your root object outside of an application-specific frame (this lets you embed your app in something other than the root):

def main():
    root = Tk()
    root.geometry = "1000x1000"
    buttonlist = ... # needs to be filled in
    app = AppFrame(root, buttonlist)

    # ...