Tkinter: Updating Progressbar When A Function Is Called

Imagine the following simple example: def doNothing(): sleep(0.5) barVar.set(10) sleep(0.5) barVar.set(20) sleep(0.5) barVar.set(30) mainWindow = Tk() barVar = DoubleV

Solution 1:

Do not use sleep() in tkinter. The entire reason for you problem is sleep() will freeze tkinter until it is done with its count so what you are seeing is a frozen program and when the program is finally released its already set to 30 percent on the next mainloop update.

Instead we need to use Tkinter's built in method called after() as after is specifically for this purpose.

import tkinter as tk import tkinter.ttk as ttk

mainWindow = tk.Tk()

def update_progress_bar():
    x = barVar.get()
    if x < 100:
        barVar.set(x+10)
        mainWindow.after(500, update_progress_bar)
    else:
        print("Complete")


barVar = tk.DoubleVar()
barVar.set(0)
bar = ttk.Progressbar(mainWindow, length=200, style='black.Horizontal.TProgressbar', variable=barVar, mode='determinate')
bar.grid(row=1, column=0)
button= tk.Button(mainWindow, text='Click', command=update_progress_bar)
button.grid(row=0, column=0)

mainWindow.mainloop()

If you want the bar to appear to move smoothly you will need to speed up the function call and reduce the addition to the DoubbleVar.

import tkinter as tk
import tkinter.ttk as ttk


mainWindow = tk.Tk()

def update_progress_bar():
    x = barVar.get()
    if x < 100:
        barVar.set(x+0.5)
        mainWindow.after(50, update_progress_bar)
    else:
        print("Complete")


barVar = tk.DoubleVar()
barVar.set(0)
bar = ttk.Progressbar(mainWindow, length=200, style='black.Horizontal.TProgressbar', variable=barVar, mode='determinate')
bar.grid(row=1, column=0)
button= tk.Button(mainWindow, text='Click', command=update_progress_bar)
button.grid(row=0, column=0)

mainWindow.mainloop()

Solution 2:

Because you are calling the function when the buttion is initialized, you need to loose the '(barVar') in the command=(barVar)). This way you bind the function to the button and don't call it when initializing it.

button= Button(mainWindow, text='Click', command=doNothing)

If you need to pass an argument you need to bypass the calling by using lambda:

button= Button(mainWindow, text='Click', command= lambda: doNothing(barVar))

Solution 3:

I think I find the solution.

simply add mainWindow.update() after each progress. So the final code would be:

def doNothing():
  sleep(0.5)
  barVar.set(10)
  mainWindow.update()
  sleep(0.5)
  barVar.set(20)
  mainWindow.update()
  sleep(0.5)
  barVar.set(30)
  mainWindow.update()