[FIXED] Python/TKinter - How to generate a list of selected widgets by name

Issue

I've re-written the question for clarity. I'm open to anything- complete redesign if needed.

I am having a problem and trying to start from the ground up since I can't find any solutions that work.

I have a file with a 75 columns, and each column is a feature. I would like the user to be able to select which features to include in the analysis.

Question 1. What is the best widget to use for this? First, I tried using a listbox, but it wouldn't let me select non-consecutive items except on the default state which required selecting each individual item (there are 75 items so this would be a lot of click).

Next, I tried using checkboxes. I think this is the best solution, but I'm having problems implementing. Here's what the UI looks like:

I am trying to associate this with a list of 'clicked' boxes that I can then pass to my back-end to remove unwanted variables since the rest of the application is pretty data intensive.

The select all and deselect all buttons work fine; my problem is with the individual selections.

Is this the right way to accomplish this goal at all? If so, how might this be accomplished? TIA- I started using tkinter yesterday so I know very little.

Here is how I'm generating the below (simplified)

Code that creates the button:

import tkinter as tk

settings.data_included_cols = ['button1'] #This is the list of clicked buttons

checkbox_buttons=dict()
checkbox_variables=dict()

button_names=['button1', 'button2', 'button3']

i=0

for i in range(len(button_names)):
    checkbox_variables[i]=1
    checkbox_button[i] = tk.Checkbutton(frame, text=button_names[i],
                                    variable=checkbox_variables[i],
                                    command=checkbox_click)

Command Code (checkbox_click)- I don't know what goes here but nothing I've tried so far has worked. Originally I was calling it as: command=lambda: checkbox_click(i), and it tried to work like the below:

def checkbox_click(i):
    if i in settings.data_included_cols:
       settings.data_included_cols.remove(button_name[i])

This doesn't work because 'i' is not associated with the button, it's associated with the loop so it will always be whatever the final value is (in this case 3 which maps to button3).

Any thoughts?

Solution

Checkboxes do not need to have a command specified.

They do however need a StringVar or IntVar associated with them, so you can query the values.

So I would build your code like this:

names = {
    "id", "member_id", "loan_amnt"
}

values = {}
boxes = {}

for name in names:
    values[name] = tk.Intvar(value=1)
    boxes[name] = ttk.Checkbox(root, text=name, variable=values[name])

Once the user has made submitted their choice, you can query the dict of values to see which options were selected.

Answered By - Roland Smith