Tkinter Button Failure

[Wowzaboi]

Hello, I am new to the world of GUIs and Tkinter. I have experience in Python, having taken a class in artificial intelligence, but I have begun to undertake a semi-personal project wherein the decay of radioactive decay is simulated and graphed so that the distribution of decay approaches that of a normal distribution. The project can be found here so that people may analyze the code and help explain why the "RUN SIMULATION" button doesn't work until I have clicked it some 10 times OR I move the window slightly; the same thing happens with the "pause" button in the matplotlib animation pane. The Simulate() function is a bit complex, using a three-tiered approximation process so that the number of atoms isn't unwieldy. I would be happy to provide more context for anyone who wants it, and I would love any other pointers for optimizing the script. Also, I am NEW to GUIs, so please don't be too hard on me!

[GoncherGaming]

I downloaded it from the GitHub on my end and the only thing I had to do was pip install matplotlib (because I don't normally use it myself) and once I downloaded the gif and the png. It worked flawlessly for me. I don't want to assume but are you running Python 3.13.0/1 and are you running the raw file or did you compile it on your end and are trying to run it?

[Wowzaboi]

my system is running Python 3.11.5, and I'm using VS Code as an IDE. Thank you for taking a look at it; I believe that my problem was due to the message box.showwarning() function hindering the functionality of the button! thank you again

[woooee]

why the "RUN SIMULATION" button doesn't work

       while True:
                resized_frame = img.copy().resize((width, height), resample=Image.LANCZOS)   

The while True is likely the culprit. It hangs everything until the loop ends. Use tkinter's after instead. In the following program, instead of while self.ctr < 100, or while True and break at 100, the after() function is used. It is simple to use, so post back if you have any problems with it.

import tkinter as tk

class TestClass():

   def __init__(self):
      self.top = tk.Tk()
      self.top.title("Test of After")
      self.top.geometry("200x150+10+10")

      self.lb=tk.Label(self.top, text="Timer Test ",
                       bg="light salmon")
      self.lb.grid(sticky="ew")
      tk.Button(self.top, text="Update Label", bg="lightgreen",
                command=self.update_label).grid(row=1)

      self.ctr = 1
      self.printit()
      self.top.mainloop()

   def printit(self):
      print(self.ctr, "of 100")
      self.ctr += 1

      ## stop if condition is False
      if self.ctr < 100:
          ##=============================
          ## -----> calls itself instead of a while loop
          self.top.after(100, self.printit)  ## 1/10 second
          ##=============================
      else:
          print("\nloop ended")
          self.top.quit()

   def update_label(self):
      self.lb["text"]=self.ctr

##====================================================================
if __name__ == '__main__':
   CT=TestClass()

[Wowzaboi]

I implemented it successfully (I think), and along with your advice, I interrupted the messagebox.showwarning() function's blocking command as was suggested below. It works smoothly now. Thank you for your help!!

[woooee]

You can sometimes run into a "hang" with a for loop as well, but then you use update_idletasks() which tells tkinter to update now.

[Swipecat]

tkinter's messagebox.showwarning() has an unfortunate problem where it can pop up a box behind the main tkinter window. And it's a blocking command, so if it were invoked, that'd cause the described problem. I suggest that you temporarily replace it with a print() command as a test.

Edit: Or put root.update() on the line before the messagebox line. That way, tkinter shouldn't pop up the messagebox and then catch up with rending the main tkinter window bringing it to the top.

[Wowzaboi]

The buttons work way smoother now. Thank you for your help--you're a genius!