Tkinter GUI Python background color

Question

I'm writing a Tkinter application with buttons, graphs, sliders, etc, but I can't get their background color to be uniform.

import Tkinter
from Tkinter import *
root = Tk()
root.title('Button')
root.configure(bg='gray')

Button(text='Button', bg='gray').pack(side=BOTTOM)
root.mainloop()

If you run this code, the background of the main window is indeed gray, but the image of the button has a white area around it. Is there a way to fix this?

Solution

If the issue is that you don't like the default button effect on your system, you don't have to change the border width; instead you can set relief='flat' in the button declaration. That way, you'll still get the "sunken" look when you click the button, which you won't get if you just set borderwidth to 0 or a value close to it. Another issue with lessening borderwidth is that it may make the button smaller than expected.

Comments

[mgilson]

does borderwidth=0 help at all?

[JAB]

I'm not sure what is causing your issue, because when I execute the code myself I don't get any "white area" around the button. I get a bit of white on the top and left, but that's due to the relief setting of the button.

[Admin]

Wow, looking back at old posts and seeing people import the same thing twice in 1 script

[pmacd]

Now that I look into it more, borderwidth=.1 works equally well

[pmacd]

In addition, if you are in interested in keeping the button gray when you push it, you can use backgroundactive='gray'.

[pmacd]

Unless there is some difference in the version of Tk we are using, I definitely get a sunken effect for both alternatives here. I can see a 1-2 pixel change in the size of the button making a difference if you are trying to make callbacks based on coordinates, but I doubt you'll notice any visual difference.

[pmacd]

I see, using just relief='flat' still gives you a border around the sunken part.