How can I schedule updates (f/e, to update a clock) in tkinter?

I'm writing a program with Python's tkinter library.

My major problem is that I don't know how to create a timer or a clock like hh:mm:ss.

I need it to update itself (that's what I don't know how to do); when I use time.sleep() in a loop the whole GUI freezes.

Solution 1:

Tkinter root windows have a method called after which can be used to schedule a function to be called after a given period of time. If that function itself calls after you've set up an automatically recurring event.

Here is a working example:

# for python 3.x use 'tkinter' rather than 'Tkinter'
import Tkinter as tk
import time

class App():
    def __init__(self):
        self.root = tk.Tk()
        self.label = tk.Label(text="")
        self.label.pack()
        self.update_clock()
        self.root.mainloop()

    def update_clock(self):
        now = time.strftime("%H:%M:%S")
        self.label.configure(text=now)
        self.root.after(1000, self.update_clock)

app=App()

Bear in mind that after doesn't guarantee the function will run exactly on time. It only schedules the job to be run after a given amount of time. It the app is busy there may be a delay before it is called since Tkinter is single-threaded. The delay is typically measured in microseconds.

Solution 2:

Python3 clock example using the frame.after() rather than the top level application. Also shows updating the label with a StringVar()

#!/usr/bin/env python3

# Display UTC.
# started with https://docs.python.org/3.4/library/tkinter.html#module-tkinter

import tkinter as tk
import time

def current_iso8601():
    """Get current date and time in ISO8601"""
    # https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
    # https://xkcd.com/1179/
    return time.strftime("%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ", time.gmtime())

class Application(tk.Frame):
    def __init__(self, master=None):
        tk.Frame.__init__(self, master)
        self.pack()
        self.createWidgets()

    def createWidgets(self):
        self.now = tk.StringVar()
        self.time = tk.Label(self, font=('Helvetica', 24))
        self.time.pack(side="top")
        self.time["textvariable"] = self.now

        self.QUIT = tk.Button(self, text="QUIT", fg="red",
                                            command=root.destroy)
        self.QUIT.pack(side="bottom")

        # initial time display
        self.onUpdate()

    def onUpdate(self):
        # update displayed time
        self.now.set(current_iso8601())
        # schedule timer to call myself after 1 second
        self.after(1000, self.onUpdate)

root = tk.Tk()
app = Application(master=root)
root.mainloop()

Solution 3:

from tkinter import *
import time
tk=Tk()
def clock():
    t=time.strftime('%I:%M:%S',time.localtime())
    if t!='':
        label1.config(text=t,font='times 25')
    tk.after(100,clock)
label1=Label(tk,justify='center')
label1.pack()
clock()
tk.mainloop()

Solution 4:

I have a simple answer to this problem. I created a thread to update the time. In the thread i run a while loop which gets the time and update it. Check the below code and do not forget to mark it as right answer.

from tkinter import *
from tkinter import *
import _thread
import time


def update():
    while True:
      t=time.strftime('%I:%M:%S',time.localtime())
      time_label['text'] = t



win = Tk()
win.geometry('200x200')

time_label = Label(win, text='0:0:0', font=('',15))
time_label.pack()


_thread.start_new_thread(update,())

win.mainloop()