Trying to fix tkinter GUI freeze-ups (using threads)

Question

I have a Python 3.x report creator that is so I/O bound (due to SQL, not python) that the main window will \"lock up\" for minutes while the reports are being creat

Answer 1

I found a good example similar to what you want to do in from one of the books I have which I think shows a good way of using threads with tkinter. It's Recipe 9.6 for Combining Tkinter and Asynchronous I/O with Threads in the first edition of the book Python Cookbook by Alex Martinelli and David Ascher. The code was written for Python 2.x, but required only minor modifications to work in Python 3.

As I said in a comment, you need to keep the GUI eventloop running if you want to be able to interact with it or just to resize or move the window. The sample code below does this by using a Queue to pass data from the background processing thread to the main GUI thread.

Tkinter has a universal function called after() which can be used schedule a function to be called after certain amount time has passed. In the code below there's a method named periodic_call() which processes any data in the queue and then calls after() to schedule another call to itself after a short delay so the queue data processing will continue.

Since after() is part of tkinter, it allows the mainloop() to continue running which keeps the GUI "alive" between these periodic queue checks. It can also make tkinter calls to update the GUI if desired (unlike code that's running in separate threads).

from itertools import count
import sys
import tkinter as tk
import tkinter.messagebox as tkMessageBox
import threading
import time
from random import randint
import queue

# Based on example Dialog 
# http://effbot.org/tkinterbook/tkinter-dialog-windows.htm
class InfoMessage(tk.Toplevel):
    def __init__(self, parent, info, title=None, modal=True):
        tk.Toplevel.__init__(self, parent)
        self.transient(parent)
        if title:
            self.title(title)
        self.parent = parent

        body = tk.Frame(self)
        self.initial_focus = self.body(body, info)
        body.pack(padx=5, pady=5)

        self.buttonbox()

        if modal:
            self.grab_set()

        if not self.initial_focus:
            self.initial_focus = self
        self.protocol("WM_DELETE_WINDOW", self.cancel)
        self.geometry("+%d+%d" % (parent.winfo_rootx()+50, parent.winfo_rooty()+50))
        self.initial_focus.focus_set()

        if modal:
            self.wait_window(self)  # Wait until this window is destroyed.

    def body(self, parent, info):
        label = tk.Label(parent, text=info)
        label.pack()
        return label  # Initial focus.

    def buttonbox(self):
        box = tk.Frame(self)
        w = tk.Button(box, text="OK", width=10, command=self.ok, default=tk.ACTIVE)
        w.pack(side=tk.LEFT, padx=5, pady=5)
        self.bind("", self.ok)
        box.pack()

    def ok(self, event=None):
        self.withdraw()
        self.update_idletasks()
        self.cancel()

    def cancel(self, event=None):
        # Put focus back to the parent window.
        self.parent.focus_set()
        self.destroy()


class GuiPart:
    TIME_INTERVAL = 0.1

    def __init__(self, master, queue, end_command):
        self.queue = queue
        self.master = master
        console = tk.Button(master, text='Done', command=end_command)
        console.pack(expand=True)
        self.update_gui()  # Start periodic GUI updating.

    def update_gui(self):
        try:
            self.master.update_idletasks()
            threading.Timer(self.TIME_INTERVAL, self.update_gui).start()
        except RuntimeError:  # mainloop no longer running.
            pass

    def process_incoming(self):
        """ Handle all messages currently in the queue. """
        while self.queue.qsize():
            try:
                info = self.queue.get_nowait()
                InfoMessage(self.master, info, "Status", modal=False)
            except queue.Empty:  # Shouldn't happen.
                pass


class ThreadedClient:
    """ Launch the main part of the GUI and the worker thread. periodic_call()
        and end_application() could reside in the GUI part, but putting them
        here means all the thread controls are in a single place.
    """
    def __init__(self, master):
        self.master = master
        self.count = count(start=1)
        self.queue = queue.Queue()

        # Set up the GUI part.
        self.gui = GuiPart(master, self.queue, self.end_application)

        # Set up the background processing thread.
        self.running = True
        self.thread = threading.Thread(target=self.workerthread)
        self.thread.start()

        # Start periodic checking of the queue.
        self.periodic_call(200)  # Every 200 ms.

    def periodic_call(self, delay):
        """ Every delay ms process everything new in the queue. """
        self.gui.process_incoming()
        if not self.running:
            sys.exit(1)
        self.master.after(delay, self.periodic_call, delay)

    # Runs in separate thread - NO tkinter calls allowed.
    def workerthread(self):
        while self.running:
            time.sleep(randint(1, 10))  # Time-consuming processing.
            count = next(self.count)
            info = 'Report #{} created'.format(count)
            self.queue.put(info)

    def end_application(self):
        self.running = False  # Stop queue checking.
        self.master.quit()


if __name__ == '__main__':  # Needed to support multiprocessing.
    root = tk.Tk()
    root.title('Report Generator')
    root.minsize(300, 100)
    client = ThreadedClient(root)
    root.mainloop()  # Display application window and start tkinter event loop.