tkstart 1.0.2

Small starter kit for tkinter: clipboard, window helpers, styled widgets, project templates.

tkstart

A small starter kit for tkinter: clipboard helpers, window positioning, image loading, styled widget factories, and a tiny library of project templates. The package is dependency-free for its core; image helpers optionally use Pillow when installed.

Installation

pip install tkstart

Optional extras:

pip install tkstart[images]      # adds Pillow for richer image support
pip install tkstart[clipboard]   # adds pyperclip as the preferred adapter

Quick start

import tkinter as tk
import tkstart

root = tk.Tk()
root.geometry("400x300")
tkstart.center(root)               # position window on the primary screen
tkstart.set_icon(root, "icon.ico") # silently no-op if file is missing

tkstart.title(root, "Hello").pack(pady=20)
tkstart.button(root, "OK", command=root.destroy, primary=True).pack()

root.mainloop()

API overview

tkstart.clipboard

Function	Purpose
copy(text)	Write text to the system clipboard, returns bool.
paste()	Return current clipboard contents as str.
clear()	Empty the clipboard.

Strategies are tried in order: pyperclip (if installed) → native CLI (clip.exe / pbcopy / xclip / xsel) → tkinter fallback.

tkstart.window

Function	Purpose
center(window)	Position window in the centre of the primary screen.
maximize(window)	Maximize using the most reliable per-platform call.
toggle_fullscreen(window, state=None)	Toggle (or force) full-screen mode.
set_icon(window, path)	Set window icon from .ico / .png.

tkstart.images

Function	Purpose
load_image(path, size=None)	Return a tkinter PhotoImage.
thumbnail(path, max_size=(128,128))	Return a downscaled thumbnail.

tkstart.widgets

Function	Purpose
button(parent, text, command=None, primary=False, danger=False)	Styled tk.Button.
title(parent, text)	Large-bold label.
separator(parent)	Horizontal divider.
labeled_entry(parent, label)	Row containing a label and an Entry.

tkstart.templates

Ready-made starter snippets bundled with the package.

Function	Purpose
templates()	List available template names.
get_template(name)	Return the raw text of a template.
copy_template(name)	Copy the template to the system clipboard.
save_template(name, path=None)	Save the template to a file.
print_template(name)	Print the template to stdout.

Current templates:

• crud_app — a tkinter CRUD application skeleton suitable as a starting point for course projects.
• sql_schema — a matching PostgreSQL schema for the CRUD demo.
• tk_minimal — a minimal window with a button.
• tk_login — a login-screen starter.

>>> import tkstart
>>> tkstart.templates()
['crud_app', 'sql_schema', 'tk_login', 'tk_minimal']
>>> tkstart.copy_template("crud_app")        # then Ctrl+V in your editor
[tkstart] copied 'crud_app' (16953 chars)
>>> tkstart.save_template("sql_schema", "schema.sql")
[tkstart] saved 'sql_schema' (20550 chars) -> /full/path/schema.sql

Short aliases:

Short form	Equivalent
tkstart.t(name)	tkstart.copy_template(name)
tkstart.app()	tkstart.copy_template("crud_app")
tkstart.sql()	tkstart.copy_template("sql_schema")

tkstart.colors

Hex/RGB conversion plus lighten, darken, mix, luminance, is_dark, contrast_text.

tkstart.validation

Field validators returning None on success or an error string: required, min_length, max_length, is_email, is_phone, is_number, between.

tkstart.theme

A Theme dataclass plus LIGHT, DARK, SOFT presets. Use theme.apply(theme.DARK) to set the active theme.

tkstart.utils

Money formatting, date parsing, search-tolerant string helpers, file-name sanitization.

Compatibility

• Python 3.8 — 3.12
• Windows, macOS, Linux

License

MIT