How to change the background color of a tkinter Canvas after it is created?

Question

I know that canvas = tkinter.Canvas(bg='red') creates a canvas with the background color of red. Since the background color is chosen when creating a new canvas, is there any way to change this later on in the program without creating a new canvas?

The best solution I can think of is creating a big rectangle that covers the whole screen with the desired background color, but the actual background color remains the same after I do this and is revealed when I clear the canvas.

Solution

You can use the configure method that exists on all widgets, and call it on the canvas to modify the background option:

You can change the background color by clicking on the canvas in the following example:

import tkinter as tk

def change_color(dummy_e):
    canvas.configure(bg='cyan')

root = tk.Tk()
canvas = tk.Canvas(root, bg='red')
canvas.pack()
canvas.bind('<1>', change_color)

root.mainloop()