Embedding a Pygame window into a Tkinter or WxPython frame

Question

A friend and I are making a game in pygame. We would like to have a pygame window embedded into a tkinter or WxPython frame, so that we can include text input, buttons, and dropdown menus that are supported by WX or Tkinter. I have scoured the internet for an answer, but all I have found are people asking the same question, none of these have been well answered.

What would be the best way implement a pygame display embedded into a tkinter or WX frame? (TKinter is preferable)

Any other way in which these features can be included alongside a pygame display would also work.

Answer 1

(Note this solution does not work on Windows systems with Pygame 2. See Using 'SDL_WINDOWID' does not embed pygame display correctly into another application #1574. You can currently download older versions of Pygame here.)

According to this SO question and the accepted answer, the simplest way to do this would be to use an SDL drawing frame.

This code is the work of SO user Alex Sallons.

import os
import pygame
import Tkinter as tk
from Tkinter import *

root = tk.Tk()
embed = tk.Frame(root, width = 500, height = 500) #creates embed frame for pygame window
embed.grid(columnspan = (600), rowspan = 500) # Adds grid
embed.pack(side = LEFT) #packs window to the left
buttonwin = tk.Frame(root, width = 75, height = 500)
buttonwin.pack(side = LEFT)
os.environ['SDL_WINDOWID'] = str(embed.winfo_id())
os.environ['SDL_VIDEODRIVER'] = 'windib'
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((500,500))
screen.fill(pygame.Color(255,255,255))
pygame.display.init()
pygame.display.update()

def draw():
    pygame.draw.circle(screen, (0,0,0), (250,250), 125)
    pygame.display.update()

button1 = Button(buttonwin,text = 'Draw',  command=draw)
button1.pack(side=LEFT)
root.update()

while True:
    pygame.display.update()
    root.update()

This code is cross-platform, as long as the windib SDL_VIDEODRIVER line is omitted on non Windows systems. I would suggest

# [...]
import platform
if platform.system == "Windows":
    os.environ['SDL_VIDEODRIVER'] = 'windib'
# [...]

Answer 2

Here are some links.

• For embedding in WxPython An Article on pygame.org
• For Embedding in WxPython An Article on the WxPython wiki
• For embedding in Tkinter see this SO question

Basically, there are many approaches.

• On Linux, you can easily embed any application in a frame inside another. Simple.
• Direct Pygame output to a WkPython Canvas

Some research will provide the relevant code.

Answer 3

Since Pygame 2.2.0 a Pygame window can also be embedded in a tkinter frame under Windows. In the following example, pygame_loop is executed continuously similar to the Pygame application loop and the Pygame display is embedded in a Frame:

import tkinter as tk
import pygame
import os, random

root = tk.Tk()
button_win = tk.Frame(root, width = 500, height = 25)
button_win.pack(side = tk.TOP)
embed_pygame = tk.Frame(root, width = 500, height = 500)
embed_pygame.pack(side = tk.TOP)

os.environ['SDL_WINDOWID'] = str(embed_pygame.winfo_id())
os.environ['SDL_VIDEODRIVER'] = 'windib'
pygame.display.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode()

def random_color():
    global circle_color
    circle_color = pygame.Color(0)
    circle_color.hsla = (random.randrange(360), 100, 50, 100)

random_color() 
color_button = tk.Button(button_win, text = 'random color',  command = random_color)
color_button.pack(side=tk.LEFT)

def pygame_loop():
    screen.fill((255, 255, 255))
    pygame.draw.circle(screen, circle_color, (250, 250), 125)
    pygame.display.flip()
    root.update()  
    root.after(100, pygame_loop)

pygame_loop()
tk.mainloop()

Answer 4

According to the tracebacks, the program crashes due to TclErrors. These are caused by attempting to access the same file, socket, or similar resource in two different threads at the same time. In this case, I believe it is a conflict of screen resources within threads. However, this is not, in fact, due to an internal issue that arises with two gui programs that are meant to function autonomously. The errors are a product of a separate thread calling root.update() when it doesn't need to because the main thread has taken over. This is stopped simply by making the thread call root.update() only when the main thread is not doing so.