Creating a basic structure in tkinter

Question

I am making a basic program just for a local machine so I do not need to create anything fancy but I am finding that my code is going to become quite lengthy. Any tips on how to improve it so I am not repeating code? I have additional code to add in respect to client data etc but I am primarily concentrating on the foundation first.

from tkinter import *
from PIL import ImageTk, Image

root = Tk()
root.withdraw()


def login(event):
    if ent1.get() == 'admin' and ent2.get() == 'password':
        root.iconify()
        top.destroy()


def client_data(event):
    root.withdraw()
    top = Toplevel()
    top.title('Client Data')
    top.geometry('800x500')
    top.configure(background='grey')
    client1 = Message(top, text='Random skeleton', bg='grey', width=350)
    client1.pack()
    x = Button(top, text='Close', bg='red', command=top.destroy)
    root.iconify()
    x.pack()


image1 = ImageTk.PhotoImage(Image.open('ileye.png'))
top = Toplevel()
top.title('Login')
top.configure(background='grey')
photo = Label(top, image=image1)
photo.pack()
user = Label(top, text='User name', bg='grey')
user.pack()
ent1 = Entry(top, bg='grey')
ent1.pack()
pwd = Label(top, text='Password', bg='grey')
pwd.pack()
ent2 = Entry(top, show='*', bg='grey')
ent2.bind('<Return>', login)
ent2.pack()
ex = Button(top, text='EXIT', command=root.quit)
ex.pack()
check = Checkbutton(top, text='Remember me', bg='grey')
check.pack()


root.title('Main Screen')
root.attributes('-zoomed', True)
menu_drop = Menu(root)
root.config(menu=menu_drop)
file = Menu(menu_drop)
menu_drop.add_cascade(label='Options', menu=file)
file.add_command(label='New', command=root.quit)  ## New Function
client = Button(root, text='Client list')
file.add_separator()
file.add_command(label='Close App', command=root.quit)
client.bind('<Button-1>', client_data)
client.pack()
exi = Button(root, text='EXIT', command=root.quit)
exi.pack()


root.mainloop()

Answer 1

Any tips on how to improve it so I am not repeating code?

There isn't really a lot of repeated code, here. I think you're fine on that front.

Avoid globals

Starting with image1 onward, you have lots of globals. Try to move them into a class, for a few reasons: re-entrance (you could spawn multiple identical windows), general code organization, namespace cleanliness, etc.

Credential management

if ent1.get() == 'admin' and ent2.get() == 'password':

I know that you are

making a basic program just for a local machine

but this is never a good habit to get into. Hard-coding passwords is not secure, and it isn't much more difficult to do the "right" thing. Import a library to be able to securely handle authentication and encrypted credential storage.

Answer 2

Never do this:

from tkinter import *

Instead use:

from tkinter import Every, Class, I, Will, Ever, Need

Or if your really must:

import tkinter as tk
# Or:
import tkinter

or similar. import * just dumps all module-level variables in your global space, which makes it a lot harder to read your code.

GUI Organization

I'm not 100% on how much this applies to Tkinter, but for PyQt we'd put as much of the initialization of GUI elements into extensions of the element's classes. So any child widget of X would be defined by and inside a method of X.

Otherwise, you could put it all in a function named main() and then call that function inside a if __name__ == "__main__": guard.