How to create a tree view with checkboxes in Python

Question

I've been using Tkinter and Tix to write a small program. I'm at a point where I need a tree view with checkboxes (checkbuttons) so I can select items from the tree view. Is there an easy way to do this? I've been looking at ttk.Treeview () and it looks easy to get the tree view but is there a way to insert a checkbutton to the view?

A simple code snippet would be really appreciated.

I'm not limited to ttk. Anything will do; as long as I have an example or good docs I can make it work

Answer 1

import Tix

class View(object):
    def __init__(self, root):
        self.root = root
        self.makeCheckList()

    def makeCheckList(self):
        self.cl = Tix.CheckList(self.root, browsecmd=self.selectItem)
        self.cl.pack()
        self.cl.hlist.add("CL1", text="checklist1")
        self.cl.hlist.add("CL1.Item1", text="subitem1")
        self.cl.hlist.add("CL2", text="checklist2")
        self.cl.hlist.add("CL2.Item1", text="subitem1")
        self.cl.setstatus("CL2", "on")
        self.cl.setstatus("CL2.Item1", "on")
        self.cl.setstatus("CL1", "off")
        self.cl.setstatus("CL1.Item1", "off")
        self.cl.autosetmode()

    def selectItem(self, item):
        print item, self.cl.getstatus(item)

def main():
    root = Tix.Tk()
    view = View(root)
    root.update()
    root.mainloop()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 2

If you can use Tix, go with @Brandon's solution. If you are stuck with Ttk (as I am), here is an solution based on @j_4231's idea. Rather than using an image to represent the checkbox, we can use two characters provided by Unicode:

• 'BALLOT BOX' (U+2610) : ☐
• 'BALLOT BOX WITH X (U+2612)' : ☒.

Those character are located after the item name and are used to check the current state: treeview.item(iid, "text")[-1] is either ☐ or ☒. We can update the item name when the text is clicked.

The class TtkCheckList inherits ttk.Treeview, hence the usual parameters/methods of Treeview can be used.

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import ttk

BALLOT_BOX = "\u2610"
BALLOT_BOX_WITH_X = "\u2612"


class TtkCheckList(ttk.Treeview):
    def __init__(self, master=None, width=200, clicked=None, separator='.',
                 unchecked=BALLOT_BOX, checked=BALLOT_BOX_WITH_X, **kwargs):
        """
        :param width: the width of the check list
        :param clicked: the optional function if a checkbox is clicked. Takes a
                        `iid` parameter.
        :param separator: the item separator (default is `'.'`)
        :param unchecked: the character for an unchecked box (default is
                          "\u2610")
        :param unchecked: the character for a checked box (default is "\u2612")

        Other parameters are passed to the `TreeView`.
        """
        if "selectmode" not in kwargs:
            kwargs["selectmode"] = "none"
        if "show" not in kwargs:
            kwargs["show"] = "tree"
        ttk.Treeview.__init__(self, master, **kwargs)
        self._separator = separator
        self._unchecked = unchecked
        self._checked = checked
        self._clicked = self.toggle if clicked is None else clicked

        self.column('#0', width=width, stretch=tk.YES)
        self.bind("<Button-1>", self._item_click, True)

    def _item_click(self, event):
        assert event.widget == self
        x, y = event.x, event.y
        element = self.identify("element", x, y)
        if element == "text":
            iid = self.identify_row(y)
            self._clicked(iid)

    def add_item(self, item):
        """
        Add an item to the checklist. The item is the list of nodes separated
        by dots: `Item.SubItem.SubSubItem`. **This item is used as `iid`  at
        the underlying `Treeview` level.**
        """
        try:
            parent_iid, text = item.rsplit(self._separator, maxsplit=1)
        except ValueError:
            parent_iid, text = "", item
        self.insert(parent_iid, index='end', iid=item,
                    text=text+" "+self._unchecked, open=True)

    def toggle(self, iid):
        """
        Toggle the checkbox `iid`
        """
        text = self.item(iid, "text")
        checked = text[-1] == self._checked
        status = self._unchecked if checked else self._checked
        self.item(iid, text=text[:-1] + status)

    def checked(self, iid):
        """
        Return True if checkbox `iid` is checked
        """
        text = self.item(iid, "text")
        return text[-1] == self._checked

    def check(self, iid):
        """
        Check the checkbox `iid`
        """
        text = self.item(iid, "text")
        if text[-1] == self._unchecked:
            self.item(iid, text=text[:-1] + self._checked)

    def uncheck(self, iid):
        """
        Uncheck the checkbox `iid`
        """
        text = self.item(iid, "text")
        if text[-1] == self._checked:
            self.item(iid, text=text[:-1] + self._unchecked)

Here is an example:

items = [
    'Item',
    'Item.SubItem1',
    'Item.SubItem2',
    'Item.SubItem2.SubSubItem1',
    'Item.SubItem2.SubSubItem2',
    'Item.SubItem2.SubSubItem3',
    'Item.SubItem3',
    'Item.SubItem3.SubSubItem1',
    'Item.SubItem4'
]

root = tk.Tk()
root.title('Test')
root.geometry('400x300')

check_list = TtkCheckList(root, height=len(items))

for item in items:
    check_list.add_item(item)
check_list.pack()

root.mainloop()

You can use the clicked parameter to define a new behavior when an item is clicked. For instance:

def obey_ancestor(iid):
    """
    If the status of an item is toggled, the status of all its descendants
    is also set to the new status.
    """
    set_status = check_list.uncheck if check_list.checked(iid) else check_list.check
    stack = [iid]
    while stack:
        iid = stack.pop()
        set_status(iid)
        stack.extend(check_list.get_children(iid))

And:

check_list = TtkCheckList(root, height=len(items),
                      clicked=obey_ancestor)

Answer 3

I would add to jferard's great answer that if you want to have a table of values rather than a tree structure change the following:

In the init add:

        self.column('#1', width=width, stretch=tk.YES)

for each column you want.

add_item should be:

    def add_item(self, item):
        """
        Add an item to the checklist. The item is the list of nodes separated
        by dots: `Item.SubItem.SubSubItem`. **This item is used as `iid`  at
        the underlying `Treeview` level.**
        """
#        try:
#            parent_iid, text = item.rsplit(self._separator, maxsplit=1)
#        except ValueError:
#            parent_iid, text = "", item
#        self.insert(parent_iid, index='end', iid=item, text=text+" "+self._unchecked, open=True)
        self.insert('', index='end', iid=item, values = item, text=self._unchecked, open=True)

Change the example as such:

cols = ['One', 'Two']
items = [('A', '1',),('B','2')]
check_list = TtkCheckList(root, columns = cols, height=len(items))

Answer 4

I made a treeview class with checkboxes inheriting ttk.Treeview, but the checkboxes are not ttk.Checkbutton but images of checked, unchecked and tristate checkboxes.

import tkinter as tk
import tkinter.ttk as ttk

class CheckboxTreeview(ttk.Treeview):
    """
        Treeview widget with checkboxes left of each item.
        The checkboxes are done via the image attribute of the item, so to keep
        the checkbox, you cannot add an image to the item.
    """

    def __init__(self, master=None, **kw):
        ttk.Treeview.__init__(self, master, **kw)
        # checkboxes are implemented with pictures
        self.im_checked = tk.PhotoImage(file='checked.png')
        self.im_unchecked = tk.PhotoImage(file='unchecked.png')
        self.im_tristate = tk.PhotoImage(file='tristate.png')
        self.tag_configure("unchecked", image=self.im_unchecked)
        self.tag_configure("tristate", image=self.im_tristate)
        self.tag_configure("checked", image=self.im_checked)
        # check / uncheck boxes on click
        self.bind("<Button-1>", self.box_click, True)

    def insert(self, parent, index, iid=None, **kw):
        """ same method as for standard treeview but add the tag 'unchecked'
            automatically if no tag among ('checked', 'unchecked', 'tristate')
            is given """
        if not "tags" in kw:
            kw["tags"] = ("unchecked",)
        elif not ("unchecked" in kw["tags"] or "checked" in kw["tags"]
                  or "tristate" in kw["tags"]):
            kw["tags"] = ("unchecked",)
        ttk.Treeview.insert(self, parent, index, iid, **kw)

    def check_descendant(self, item):
        """ check the boxes of item's descendants """
        children = self.get_children(item)
        for iid in children:
            self.item(iid, tags=("checked",))
            self.check_descendant(iid)

    def check_ancestor(self, item):
        """ check the box of item and change the state of the boxes of item's
            ancestors accordingly """
        self.item(item, tags=("checked",))
        parent = self.parent(item)
        if parent:
            children = self.get_children(parent)
            b = ["checked" in self.item(c, "tags") for c in children]
            if False in b:
                # at least one box is not checked and item's box is checked
                self.tristate_parent(parent)
            else:
                # all boxes of the children are checked
                self.check_ancestor(parent)

    def tristate_parent(self, item):
        """ put the box of item in tristate and change the state of the boxes of
            item's ancestors accordingly """
        self.item(item, tags=("tristate",))
        parent = self.parent(item)
        if parent:
            self.tristate_parent(parent)

    def uncheck_descendant(self, item):
        """ uncheck the boxes of item's descendant """
        children = self.get_children(item)
        for iid in children:
            self.item(iid, tags=("unchecked",))
            self.uncheck_descendant(iid)

    def uncheck_ancestor(self, item):
        """ uncheck the box of item and change the state of the boxes of item's
            ancestors accordingly """
        self.item(item, tags=("unchecked",))
        parent = self.parent(item)
        if parent:
            children = self.get_children(parent)
            b = ["unchecked" in self.item(c, "tags") for c in children]
            if False in b:
                # at least one box is checked and item's box is unchecked
                self.tristate_parent(parent)
            else:
                # no box is checked
                self.uncheck_ancestor(parent)

    def box_click(self, event):
        """ check or uncheck box when clicked """
        x, y, widget = event.x, event.y, event.widget
        elem = widget.identify("element", x, y)
        if "image" in elem:
            # a box was clicked
            item = self.identify_row(y)
            tags = self.item(item, "tags")
            if ("unchecked" in tags) or ("tristate" in tags):
                self.check_ancestor(item)
                self.check_descendant(item)
            else:
                self.uncheck_descendant(item)
                self.uncheck_ancestor(item)



if __name__ == '__main__':
    root = tk.Tk()
    t = CheckboxTreeview(root, show="tree")
    t.pack()
    t.insert("", 0, "1", text="1")
    t.insert("1", "end", "11", text="1")
    t.insert("1", "end", "12", text="2")
    t.insert("12", "end", "121", text="1")
    t.insert("12", "end", "122", text="2")
    t.insert("122", "end", "1221", text="1")
    t.insert("1", "end", "13", text="3")
    t.insert("13", "end", "131", text="1")
    root.mainloop()

An improved version of CheckboxTreeview is available in the ttkwidgets module.