Python Tkinter Basics: An Introduction to Tkinter UI with the Place Layout

The Place layout allows you to specify the exact position and size of each widget using absolute coordinates. It's useful for creating complex layouts, but it requires a lot of manual positioning.

To use the place layout we have to call the place method. This method accepts following parameters:

• x: The X coordinate of the upper-left corner of the widget, relative to the parent widget's upper-left corner.
• y: The Y coordinate of the upper-left corner of the widget, relative to the parent widget's upper-left corner.
• width: The width of the widget.
• height: The height of the widget.
• relx: The relative X coordinate of the upper-left corner of the widget, as a percentage of the parent widget's width.
• rely: The relative Y coordinate of the upper-left corner of the widget, as a percentage of the parent widget's height.
• relwidth: The relative width of the widget, as a percentage of the parent widget's width.
• relheight: The relative height of the widget, as a percentage of the parent widget's height.
• anchor: Specifies where the widget should be anchored within its parent widget. This can be a combination of the following values: 'n', 's', 'e', 'w': The widget should be anchored to the top, bottom, right, or left side of its parent, respectively. 'nw', 'ne', 'sw', 'se': The widget should be anchored to the top-left, top-right, bottom-left, or bottom-right corner of its parent, respectively.
• bordermode: Specifies how the widget's size should be calculated. This can be one of the following values: 'inside': The widget's size is calculated based on its internal dimensions, without including any border or padding. 'outside': The widget's size is calculated based on its external dimensions, including any border or padding.

The example below shows the usage of the place-layout with the same layout which we already implemented in the previous tutorial for the grid-layout:

import tkinter as tk

root = tk.Tk()

# Create the text input and submit button using the Place layout
text_input = tk.Entry(root)
submit_button = tk.Button(root, text="Submit")
text_input.place(x=10, y=10, width=200, height=25)
submit_button.place(x=220, y=10, width=75, height=25)

# Create the multiline label using the Place layout
label_text = tk.StringVar()
label_text.set("This is a multiline label.\nIt takes up all available width.\nDemo for place layout with Tk in Python\n(c) DEVLABS.ninja")
multiline_label = tk.Label(root, textvariable=label_text, justify="left", anchor="w", wraplength=root.winfo_screenwidth())
multiline_label.place(x=10, y=50, relwidth=1.0, relheight=1.0, width=-20, height=-60)

root.mainloop()