PyDeskUI

Professional tkinter/ttk components for Python 3.13+ and Tcl/Tk 9, with zero third-party runtime dependencies. Version 0.2.0 uses Tk 9's native SVG reader for scalable icons and compact control surfaces.

Desktop studio

Light	Dark

The gallery includes the complete component collection, three desktop scenes, and a live theme editor. From a repository checkout, run python examples/gallery.py to explore it. The gallery is a demonstration, not a complete API or platform/accessibility test.

Installation

Install PyDeskUI from PyPI:

python -m pip install pydeskui

Check that Python is 3.13 or newer and is linked to Tk 9:

python -c "import tkinter as tk; r=tk.Tk(); print(r.tk.call('info','patchlevel')); r.destroy()"

Tk 8.6 is rejected when a Theme or component is created. A virtual environment inherits Tcl/Tk from its base interpreter; installing PyDeskUI cannot replace it.

Quick start

import tkinter as tk
from pydeskui import Button, Card, Entry, Label, Theme

root = tk.Tk()
theme = Theme(root, radius=6, density="default", font_size=13)
panel = Card(root, theme=theme)
panel.pack(fill="both", expand=True, padx=16, pady=16)
Label(panel, text="Project name", theme=theme).pack(anchor="w")
value = tk.StringVar(master=root, value="Hello")
Entry(panel, textvariable=value, placeholder="Untitled", theme=theme).pack(fill="x")
Button(panel, text="Clear", variant="secondary", theme=theme,
       command=lambda: value.set("")).pack(anchor="e", pady=8)
root.mainloop()

The caller owns the parent, domain state and event loop. All GUI operations run on the Tk thread. Importing the library never creates a root. Themes use scoped styles; widget destruction cancels owned work and retains caller variables.

The pydeskui.widgets export surface contains 38 components (excluding data helpers and contexts):

Themes default to keyboard-aware focus rings: pointer interaction stays visually quiet while Tab and arrow-key navigation remains visible. Set focus_ring to "always" or "never" when an application needs an explicit policy.

Supporting APIs include Item, FieldSpec, Theme, TranslationContext, Scheduler, CancelHandle, check_runtime, load_image, load_svg and UnsupportedTkVersionError. Tk 9 loads SVG, PNG and GIF directly. Bundled icons are SVG source assets and are rendered at the active logical size.

Documentation

See the design system, appearance decision, implemented API, migration guide, design documents, and agent skill.

Contributing

Development setup, testing, and release checks are documented in the contribution guide.

Support

If PyDeskUI is useful to you, you can support its development on Buy Me a Coffee.