tkinter frame propagate not behaving?

Question

If you uncomment the options_frame_title you will see that it does not behave properly. Am I missing something? That section was just copied and pasted from the preview_frame_ti

Answer 1

Ok after some digging I realized the problem was not with your options_frame_title but with your frames the Label was being placed in.

Of you un-comment options_frame_title and comment out preview_frame_title you will see the exact same problem. What is happening is the frame has a set size and the main window is conforming to that frame size. And when you decide to place a label into the frame then the frame will conform to the label size.

What you want to do to achieve the look you are going for is do something a little different with the .grid_propagate(0) than what you are currently doing.

We also need to add some weights to the correct frames so the widgets will fill properly.

Take a look at this code.

from tkinter import *

blank_app = Tk()

main_frame = Frame(blank_app,width=700, height=300, bg='gray22')
main_frame.grid(row=0, column=0, sticky=NSEW)

main_frame.grid_propagate(0) #the only place you need to use propagate(0) Thought there are better ways

main_frame.columnconfigure(0, weight = 1) #using weights to manage frames properly helps a lot here
main_frame.columnconfigure(1, weight = 1)
main_frame.rowconfigure(0, weight = 0)
main_frame.rowconfigure(1, weight = 1)

main_title = Label(main_frame, text='App Builder', bg='gray', fg='red', font='Times 12 bold', relief=RIDGE)
main_title.grid(row=0, column=0, columnspan=2, padx=2, pady=2, sticky=NSEW)

preview_frame = Frame(main_frame, bg='red', highlightcolor='white', highlightthickness=2)
preview_frame.grid(row=1, column=0, padx=2, pady=2, sticky=NSEW)
preview_frame.columnconfigure(0, weight = 1)# using weights to manage frames properly helps a lot here

preview_frame_title = Label(preview_frame, text='Preview Window', bg='gray', fg='blue', relief=RIDGE)
preview_frame_title.grid(row=0, column=0, sticky=NSEW)

options_frame = Frame(main_frame, bg='blue', highlightcolor='white', highlightthickness=2)
options_frame.grid(row=1, column=1, padx=2, pady=2, sticky=NSEW)
options_frame.columnconfigure(0, weight = 1) #using weights to manage frames properly helps a lot here

options_frame_title = Label(options_frame, text='Widget Options', bg='gray', fg='blue', anchor=CENTER, relief=RIDGE)
options_frame_title.grid(row=0, column=0, sticky=NSEW)

blank_app.mainloop()