Listbox Python Columns

Question

I am trying to develop a script that allows me to keep my formatting within my listbox.

from Tkinter import *
from tabulate import tabulate
master = Tk()

listbox = Listbox(master)
listbox.pack()

table = [["spam",42],["eggs",451],["bacon",0]]
headers = ["item", "qty"]
tb = tabulate(table, headers, tablefmt="plain")

listbox.insert(END,tb)

mainloop()

End Result the listbox populated with the tb formatting:

QUESTION: HOW DO I GET MY LISTBOX TO APPEAR LIKE THE PICTURE ABOVE THAT I USED TABULATE TO FORMAT?

I've noticed treeview seems to have some limitations with the horizontal box and expanding the columns without adjusting the entire GUI so I'd decided this might be a more shake-shift way that will suit my needs just fine.

sorry, i don't completely follow your goal. what's your question? — chickity china chinese chicken
– chickity china chinese chicken, Commented Feb 11, 2017 at 0:52
Ideally, I'd like the listbox to be populated like the tabulate would be formatted. — Josh Clayton
– Josh Clayton, Commented Feb 11, 2017 at 0:55
This is hardly showing off. I'm asking how do i format it within listbox? It currently is all jumbled and not specific to each column.. I thought tabulate would help, but that is not the case. — Josh Clayton
– Josh Clayton, Commented Feb 11, 2017 at 1:09
@downshift: grid is not a widget. It's simply a way of organizing widgets. — Bryan Oakley
– Bryan Oakley, Commented Feb 11, 2017 at 5:39

chickity china chinese chicken · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-19 03:48:36Z

2

One option may be to use str.format() to align each insert into the listbox:

from Tkinter import *
import tkFont

master = Tk()
master.resizable(width=False, height=False)
master.geometry('{width}x{height}'.format(width=300, height=100))
my_font = tkFont.Font(family="Monaco", size=12) # use a fixed width font so columns align

listbox = Listbox(master, width=400, height=400, font=my_font)
listbox.pack()

table = [["spam", 42, "test", ""],["eggs", 451, "", "we"],["bacon", "True", "", ""]]
headers = ["item", "qty", "sd", "again"]

row_format ="{:<8}{sp}{:>8}{sp}{:<8}{sp}{:8}" # left or right align, with an arbitrary '8' column width 

listbox.insert(0, row_format.format(*headers, sp=" "*2))
for items in table:
    listbox.insert(END, row_format.format(*items, sp=" "*2))
mainloop()

Which appears to match the output you got using tabulate:

Another option could be use a Grid layout.

edited Dec 19, 2022 at 3:48

answered Feb 11, 2017 at 3:15

chickity china chinese chicken

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6 Comments

Josh Clayton Over a year ago

Brian - That's true, but will suffice. Thanks downshift!

OParker Over a year ago

@davedwards Thank you for this code, I'm trying to use it in a similar way however my list of lists under 'table' has all the variables grouped differently. I.E [["spam", "eggs", "bacon"],[42,451, "True"],["test", " ", " "],[" ", "we", " "]]. How can I change it to put the data in correctly?

chickity china chinese chicken Over a year ago

@OParker I'm glad to hear the code was helpful for you. Your list contains lists of 3 items instead of 4 items, so we can change the header and row_format to length of 3, use headers = ["item", "qty", "sd"] and row_format ="{:<8}{sp}{:>8}{sp}{:<8}"

OParker Over a year ago

@davedwards thank you for replying, sorry that was poor explaining on my part. The differences between our lists is that in your code you're taking n from each list. i.e "spam", "42", "test", " " and then appending under the header. Whereas with my data I would have all of the instances for "item" in the same list, then all of the instances of "qty" in the same list. Is there a different insert method? There would be 17 items per list with 8 headers. (I've changed the row format to reflect this). (I can open a question if you'd prefer)

Kustekjé Meklootn Over a year ago

Please can you give some explanation about sp=" "*2 and *headers (meaning of asterix?)

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