Create your Own Python IDE Using Tkinter

Published February 03, 2022

IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) are essential for writing, debugging, executing, and displaying any code or program. IDEs let us build programs, retrieve inputs, check for errors, and view all outputs in the code. In this post, we will learn how to create a Python IDE using Tkinter.

Steps to Create the IDE with Python

Follow the simple steps below to create a Python IDE:

Step 1: Create a new Python application and name it Python IDE

Step 2: Import all the necessary libraries. Add the following lines to your code to import these libraries:

from tkinter import *

from tkinter import ttk

from tkinter.filedialog import asksaveasfilename, askopenfilename

from tkinter.scrolledtext import ScrolledText

import subprocess

Step 3: Construct a menu and add their functionalities. We will have five buttons on the application menu including, File, Edit, Run, View, and Settings. Each button will perform an important function.

First create menu

file_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

edit_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

run_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

view_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

theme_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

Next, add the menu labels to our menu items to make sure they are visible in our GUI.

menu.add_cascade(label="File", menu=file_menu)

menu.add_cascade(label="Edit", menu=edit_menu)

menu.add_cascade(label="Run", menu=run_menu)

menu.add_cascade(label ="View", menu=view_menu)

menu.add_cascade(label ="Theme", menu=theme_menu)

Although our menus have been created, they are not performing their tasks. To make them work, we add commands:

file_menu.add_command(label="Open", accelerator="Ctrl+O", command=open_file)

file_menu.add_separator()

file_menu.add_command(label="Save", accelerator="Ctrl+S", command=save_file)

file_menu.add_command(label="Save As", accelerator="Ctrl+Shift+S", command=save_as)

file_menu.add_separator()

file_menu.add_command(label="Exit", accelerator="Ctrl+Q", command=close)

Commands to the edit menu

edit_menu.add_command(label="Cut", command=cut_text)

edit_menu.add_command(label="Copy", command=copy_text)

edit_menu.add_command(label="Paste", command=paste_text)

run_menu.add_command(label="Run", accelerator="F5", command=run)

commands to change themes

theme_menu.add_command(label="light", command=light)

theme_menu.add_command(label="dark", command=dark)

Step 4: The next step is to create an editor window where we will write our code. We will have two scrolled text widgets where we will write the code and save it. We will display the output of the code here

editor = ScrolledText(window, font=("haveltica 10 bold"), wrap=None)

editor.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=1)

editor.focus()

file_path = ""

Step 5: Create the functions to enable our IDE to perform its functionalities. Different commands within the menu items will call these functions.

Function to display characters

text_change = False

def change_word(event = None):

global text_change

if editor.edit_modified():

text_change = True

word = len(editor.get(1.0, "end-1c").split())

chararcter = len(editor.get(1.0, "end-1c").replace(" ",""))

status_bars.config(text = f"www.codershubb.com \t\t\t\t\t\t characters: {chararcter} words: {word}")

editor.edit_modified(False)

editor.bind("<<Modified>>",change_word)

functions for status bar

show_status_bar = BooleanVar()

show_status_bar.set(True)

def hide_statusbar():

global show_status_bar

if show_status_bar:

status_bars.pack_forget()

show_status_bar = False

else :

status_bars.pack(side=BOTTOM)

show_status_bar = True

view_menu.add_checkbutton(label = "Status Bar" , onvalue = True, offvalue = 0,variable = show_status_bar , command = hide_statusbar)

The functions for the Settings

def light():

editor.config(bg="white")

output_window.config(bg="white")

function to make our IDE dark

def dark():

editor.config(fg="white", bg="black")

output_window.config(fg="white", bg="black")

Step 6: We are done. Let’s run our IDE application

from tkinter import *

from tkinter import ttk

from tkinter.filedialog import asksaveasfilename, askopenfilename

from tkinter.scrolledtext import ScrolledText

import subprocess

window = Tk()

window.title("A PYTHON IDE")

# create and configure menu

menu = Menu(window)

window.config(menu=menu)

# create editor window for writing code

editor = ScrolledText(window, font=("haveltica 9 bold"), wrap=None)

editor.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=1)

editor.focus()

file_path = ""

def open_file(event=None):

global code, file_path

# code = editor.get(1.0, END)

open_path = askopenfilename(filetypes=[("Python File", "*.py")])

file_path = open_path

with open(open_path, "r") as file:

code = file.read()

editor.delete(1.0, END)

editor.insert(1.0, code)

window.bind("<Control-o>", open_file)

def save_file(event=None):

global code, file_path

if file_path == '':

save_path = asksaveasfilename(defaultextension=".py", filetypes=[("Python File", "*.py")])

file_path = save_path

else:

save_path = file_path

with open(save_path, "w") as file:

code = editor.get(1.0, END)

file.write(code)

window.bind("<Control-s>", save_file)

def save_as(event=None):

global code, file_path

save_path = asksaveasfilename(defaultextension=".py", filetypes=[("Python File", "*.py")])

file_path = save_path

with open(save_path, "w") as file:

code = editor.get(1.0, END)

file.write(code)

window.bind("<Control-S>", save_as)

def run(event=None):

global code, file_path

'''

code = editor.get(1.0, END)

exec(code)

'''

cmd = f"python {file_path}"

process = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE,

stderr=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)

output, error = process.communicate()

output_window.delete(1.0, END)

output_window.insert(1.0, output)

output_window.insert(1.0, error)

window.bind("<F5>", run)

function to close IDE window

def close(event=None):

window.destroy()

window.bind("<Control-q>", close)

def cut_text(event=None):

editor.event_generate(("<<Cut>>"))

def copy_text(event=None):

editor.event_generate(("<<Copy>>"))

def paste_text(event=None):

editor.event_generate(("<<Paste>>"))

file_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

edit_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

run_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

view_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

theme_menu = Menu(menu, tearoff=0)

# add menu labels

menu.add_cascade(label="File", menu=file_menu)

menu.add_cascade(label="Edit", menu=edit_menu)

menu.add_cascade(label="Run", menu=run_menu)

menu.add_cascade(label="View", menu=view_menu)

menu.add_cascade(label="Theme", menu=theme_menu)

file_menu.add_command(label="Open", accelerator="Ctrl+O", command=open_file)

file_menu.add_separator()

file_menu.add_command(label="Save", accelerator="Ctrl+S", command=save_file)

file_menu.add_command(label="Save As", accelerator="Ctrl+Shift+S", command=save_as)

file_menu.add_separator()

file_menu.add_command(label="Exit", accelerator="Ctrl+Q", command=close)

# add commands in edit menu

edit_menu.add_command(label="Cut", command=cut_text)

edit_menu.add_command(label="Copy", command=copy_text)

edit_menu.add_command(label="Paste", command=paste_text)

run_menu.add_command(label="Run", accelerator="F5", command=run)

show_status_bar = BooleanVar()

show_status_bar.set(True)

def hide_statusbar():

global show_status_bar

if show_status_bar:

status_bars.pack_forget()

show_status_bar = False

else:

status_bars.pack(side=BOTTOM)

show_status_bar = True

view_menu.add_checkbutton(label="Status Bar", onvalue=True, offvalue=0, variable=show_status_bar,

command=hide_statusbar)

status_bars = ttk.Label(window, text=" \t\t\t\t\t\t characters: 0 words: 0")

status_bars.pack(side=BOTTOM)

text_change = False

def change_word(event=None):

global text_change

if editor.edit_modified():

text_change = True

word = len(editor.get(1.0, "end-1c").split())

chararcter = len(editor.get(1.0, "end-1c").replace(" ", ""))

status_bars.config(text=f" \t\t\t\t\t\t characters: {chararcter} words: {word}")

editor.edit_modified(False)

editor.bind("<<Modified>>", change_word)

def light():

editor.config(bg="white")

output_window.config(bg="white")

def dark():

editor.config(fg="white", bg="black")

output_window.config(fg="white", bg="black")

theme_menu.add_command(label="light", command=light)

theme_menu.add_command(label="dark", command=dark)

# create output window to display output of written code

output_window = ScrolledText(window, height=10)

output_window.pack(fill=BOTH, expand=1)

window.mainloop()