NAME¶
ttk::entry - Editable text field widget
SYNOPSIS¶
ttk::entry pathName ?
options?
DESCRIPTION¶
An
ttk::entry widget displays a one-line text string and allows that
string to be edited by the user. The value of the string may be linked to a
Tcl variable with the
-textvariable option. Entry widgets support
horizontal scrolling with the standard
-xscrollcommand option and
xview widget command.
STANDARD OPTIONS¶
-class -cursor -style
-takefocus -xscrollcommand
See the
ttk_widget manual entry for details on the standard options.
Command-Line Name: -exportselection
Database Name: exportSelection
Database Class: ExportSelection
- A boolean value specifying whether or not a selection in
the widget should be linked to the X selection. If the selection is
exported, then selecting in the widget deselects the current X selection,
selecting outside the widget deselects any widget selection, and the
widget will respond to selection retrieval requests when it has a
selection.
Command-Line Name: -invalidcommand
Database Name: invalidCommand
Database Class: InvalidCommand
- A script template to evaluate whenever the
validateCommand returns 0. See VALIDATION below for more
information.
Command-Line Name: -justify
Database Name: justify
Database Class: Justify
- Specifies how the text is aligned within the entry widget.
One of left, center, or right.
Command-Line Name: -show
Database Name: show
Database Class: Show
- If this option is specified, then the true contents of the
entry are not displayed in the window. Instead, each character in the
entry's value will be displayed as the first character in the value of
this option, such as “*” or a bullet. This is useful, for
example, if the entry is to be used to enter a password. If characters in
the entry are selected and copied elsewhere, the information copied will
be what is displayed, not the true contents of the entry.
Command-Line Name: -state
Database Name: state
Database Class: State
- Compatibility option; see ttk::widget(3tk) for
details. Specifies one of three states for the entry, normal,
disabled, or readonly. See WIDGET STATES, below.
Command-Line Name: -textvariable
Database Name: textVariable
Database Class: Variable
- Specifies the name of a global variable whose value is
linked to the entry widget's contents. Whenever the variable changes
value, the widget's contents are updated, and vice versa.
Command-Line Name: -validate
Database Name: validate
Database Class: Validate
- Specifies the mode in which validation should operate:
none, focus, focusin, focusout, key, or
all. Default is none, meaning that validation is disabled.
See VALIDATION below.
Command-Line Name: -validatecommand
Database Name: validateCommand
Database Class: ValidateCommand
- A script template to evaluate whenever validation is
triggered. If set to the empty string (the default), validation is
disabled. The script must return a boolean value. See VALIDATION
below.
Command-Line Name: -width
Database Name: width
Database Class: Width
- Specifies an integer value indicating the desired width of
the entry window, in average-size characters of the widget's font.
NOTES¶
A portion of the entry may be selected as described below. If an entry is
exporting its selection (see the
exportSelection option), then it will
observe the standard X11 protocols for handling the selection; entry
selections are available as type
STRING. Entries also observe the
standard Tk rules for dealing with the input focus. When an entry has the
input focus it displays an
insert cursor to indicate where new
characters will be inserted.
Entries are capable of displaying strings that are too long to fit entirely
within the widget's window. In this case, only a portion of the string will be
displayed; commands described below may be used to change the view in the
window. Entries use the standard
xScrollCommand mechanism for
interacting with scrollbars (see the description of the
xScrollCommand
option for details).
INDICES¶
Many of the
entry widget commands take one or more indices as arguments.
An index specifies a particular character in the entry's string, in any of the
following ways:
- number
- Specifies the character as a numerical index, where 0
corresponds to the first character in the string.
- @number
- In this form, number is treated as an x-coordinate
in the entry's window; the character spanning that x-coordinate is used.
For example, “ @0” indicates the left-most character in
the window.
- end
- Indicates the character just after the last one in the
entry's string. This is equivalent to specifying a numerical index equal
to the length of the entry's string.
- insert
- Indicates the character adjacent to and immediately
following the insert cursor.
- sel.first
- Indicates the first character in the selection. It is an
error to use this form if the selection is not in the entry window.
- sel.last
- Indicates the character just after the last one in the
selection. It is an error to use this form if the selection is not in the
entry window.
Abbreviations may be used for any of the forms above, e.g. “
e” or “
sel.l”. In general, out-of-range
indices are automatically rounded to the nearest legal value.
The following subcommands are possible for entry widgets:
- pathName bbox index
- Returns a list of four numbers describing the bounding box
of the character given by index. The first two elements of the list
give the x and y coordinates of the upper-left corner of the screen area
covered by the character (in pixels relative to the widget) and the last
two elements give the width and height of the character, in pixels. The
bounding box may refer to a region outside the visible area of the
window.
- pathName delete first
?last?
- Delete one or more elements of the entry. First is
the index of the first character to delete, and last is the index
of the character just after the last one to delete. If last is not
specified it defaults to first+1, i.e. a single character is
deleted. This command returns the empty string.
- pathName get
- Returns the entry's string.
- pathName icursor index
- Arrange for the insert cursor to be displayed just before
the character given by index. Returns the empty string.
- pathName index index
- Returns the numerical index corresponding to
index.
- pathName insert index string
- Insert string just before the character indicated by
index. Returns the empty string.
- pathName selection option arg
- This command is used to adjust the selection within an
entry. It has several forms, depending on option:
- pathName selection clear
- Clear the selection if it is currently in this widget. If
the selection is not in this widget then the command has no effect.
Returns the empty string.
- pathName selection present
- Returns 1 if there is are characters selected in the entry,
0 if nothing is selected.
- pathName selection range start
end
- Sets the selection to include the characters starting with
the one indexed by start and ending with the one just before
end. If end refers to the same character as start or
an earlier one, then the entry's selection is cleared.
- pathName validate
- Force revalidation, independent of the conditions specified
by the -validate option. Returns 0 if validation fails, 1 if it
succeeds. Sets or clears the invalid state accordingly. See
VALIDATION below for more details.
- pathName xview args
- This command is used to query and change the horizontal
position of the text in the widget's window. It can take any of the
following forms:
- pathName xview
- Returns a list containing two elements. Each element is a
real fraction between 0 and 1; together they describe the horizontal span
that is visible in the window. For example, if the first element is .2 and
the second element is .6, 20% of the entry's text is off-screen to the
left, the middle 40% is visible in the window, and 40% of the text is
off-screen to the right. These are the same values passed to scrollbars
via the -xscrollcommand option.
- pathName xview index
- Adjusts the view in the window so that the character given
by index is displayed at the left edge of the window.
- pathName xview moveto fraction
- Adjusts the view in the window so that the character
fraction of the way through the text appears at the left edge of
the window. Fraction must be a fraction between 0 and 1.
- pathName xview scroll number what
- This command shifts the view in the window left or right
according to number and what. Number must be an
integer. What must be either units or pages. If
what is units, the view adjusts left or right by
number average-width characters on the display; if it is
pages then the view adjusts by number screenfuls. If
number is negative then characters farther to the left become
visible; if it is positive then characters farther to the right become
visible.
The entry widget also supports the following generic
ttk::widget widget
subcommands (see
ttk::widget(3tk) for details):
cget configure identify
instate state
VALIDATION¶
The
-validate,
-validatecommand, and
-invalidcommand
options are used to enable entry widget validation.
VALIDATION MODES¶
There are two main validation modes:
prevalidation, in which the
-validatecommand is evaluated prior to each edit and the return value
is used to determine whether to accept or reject the change; and
revalidation, in which the
-validatecommand is evaluated to
determine whether the current value is valid.
The
-validate option determines when validation occurs; it may be set to
any of the following values:
- none
- Default. This means validation will only occur when
specifically requested by the validate widget command.
- key
- The entry will be prevalidated prior to each edit
(specifically, whenever the insert or delete widget commands
are called). If prevalidation fails, the edit is rejected.
- focus
- The entry is revalidated when the entry receives or loses
focus.
- focusin
- The entry is revalidated when the entry receives
focus.
- focusout
- The entry is revalidated when the entry loses focus.
- all
- Validation is performed for all above conditions.
The
-invalidcommand is evaluated whenever the
-validatecommand
returns a false value.
The
-validatecommand and
-invalidcommand may modify the entry
widget's value via the widget
insert or
delete commands, or by
setting the linked
-textvariable. If either does so during
prevalidation, then the edit is rejected regardless of the value returned by
the
-validatecommand.
If
-validatecommand is empty (the default), validation always succeeds.
VALIDATION SCRIPT SUBSTITUTIONS¶
It is possible to perform percent substitutions on the
-validatecommand
and
-invalidcommand, just as in a
bind script. The following
substitutions are recognized:
- %d
- Type of action: 1 for insert prevalidation, 0 for
delete prevalidation, or -1 for revalidation.
- %i
- Index of character string to be inserted/deleted, if any,
otherwise -1.
- %P
- In prevalidation, the new value of the entry if the edit is
accepted. In revalidation, the current value of the entry.
- %s
- The current value of entry prior to editing.
- %S
- The text string being inserted/deleted, if any, {}
otherwise.
- %v
- The current value of the -validate option.
- %V
- The validation condition that triggered the callback (
key, focusin, focusout, or forced).
- %W
- The name of the entry widget.
DIFFERENCES FROM TK ENTRY WIDGET VALIDATION¶
The standard Tk entry widget automatically disables validation (by setting
-validate to
none) if the
-validatecommand or
-invalidcommand modifies the entry's value. The Tk themed entry widget
only disables validation if one of the validation scripts raises an error, or
if
-validatecommand does not return a valid boolean value. (Thus, it is
not necessary to re-enable validation after modifying the entry value in a
validation script).
In addition, the standard entry widget invokes validation whenever the linked
-textvariable is modified; the Tk themed entry widget does not.
DEFAULT BINDINGS¶
The entry widget's default bindings enable the following behavior. In the
descriptions below, “word” refers to a contiguous group of
letters, digits, or “_” characters, or any single character other
than these.
- •
- Clicking mouse button 1 positions the insert cursor just
before the character underneath the mouse cursor, sets the input focus to
this widget, and clears any selection in the widget. Dragging with mouse
button 1 down strokes out a selection between the insert cursor and the
character under the mouse.
- •
- Double-clicking with mouse button 1 selects the word under
the mouse and positions the insert cursor at the end of the word. Dragging
after a double click strokes out a selection consisting of whole
words.
- •
- Triple-clicking with mouse button 1 selects all of the text
in the entry and positions the insert cursor at the end of the line.
- •
- The ends of the selection can be adjusted by dragging with
mouse button 1 while the Shift key is down. If the button is
double-clicked before dragging then the selection will be adjusted in
units of whole words.
- •
- Clicking mouse button 1 with the Control key down will
position the insert cursor in the entry without affecting the
selection.
- •
- If any normal printing characters are typed in an entry,
they are inserted at the point of the insert cursor.
- •
- The view in the entry can be adjusted by dragging with
mouse button 2. If mouse button 2 is clicked without moving the mouse, the
selection is copied into the entry at the position of the mouse
cursor.
- •
- If the mouse is dragged out of the entry on the left or
right sides while button 1 is pressed, the entry will automatically scroll
to make more text visible (if there is more text off-screen on the side
where the mouse left the window).
- •
- The Left and Right keys move the insert cursor one
character to the left or right; they also clear any selection in the
entry. If Left or Right is typed with the Shift key down, then the
insertion cursor moves and the selection is extended to include the new
character. Control-Left and Control-Right move the insert cursor by words,
and Control-Shift-Left and Control-Shift-Right move the insert cursor by
words and also extend the selection. Control-b and Control-f behave the
same as Left and Right, respectively.
- •
- The Home key and Control-a move the insert cursor to the
beginning of the entry and clear any selection in the entry. Shift-Home
moves the insert cursor to the beginning of the entry and extends the
selection to that point.
- •
- The End key and Control-e move the insert cursor to the end
of the entry and clear any selection in the entry. Shift-End moves the
cursor to the end and extends the selection to that point.
- •
- Control-/ selects all the text in the entry.
- •
- Control-\ clears any selection in the entry.
- •
- The standard Tk <<Cut>>, <<Copy>>,
<<Paste>>, and <<Clear>> virtual events operate on
the selection in the expected manner.
- •
- The Delete key deletes the selection, if there is one in
the entry. If there is no selection, it deletes the character to the right
of the insert cursor.
- •
- The BackSpace key and Control-h delete the selection, if
there is one in the entry. If there is no selection, it deletes the
character to the left of the insert cursor.
- •
- Control-d deletes the character to the right of the insert
cursor.
- •
- Control-k deletes all the characters to the right of the
insertion cursor.
In the
disabled state, the entry cannot be edited and the text cannot be
selected. In the
readonly state, no insert cursor is displayed and the
entry cannot be edited (specifically: the
insert and
delete
commands have no effect). The
disabled state is the same as
readonly, and in addition text cannot be selected.
Note that changes to the linked
-textvariable will still be reflected in
the entry, even if it is disabled or readonly.
Typically, the text is “grayed-out” in the
disabled state,
and a different background is used in the
readonly state.
The entry widget sets the
invalid state if revalidation fails, and clears
it whenever validation succeeds.
SEE ALSO¶
ttk::widget(3tk), entry(3tk)
KEYWORDS¶
entry, widget, text field