Displaying pics in Labels with a for Statement using tkinter, can it be done?

Question

I am trying to get a random bunch of pictures to print side by side; the problem is that if I run the following code all that happens is that it creates a group of blank emp

Answer 1

This is a well-known issue with tkinter - you MUST keep your own reference to all Photoimages, otherwise python will garbage collect them - that's what's happening to your images. Merely setting them as the image for a label does NOT add to the reference count for the image objects.

SOLUTION:

To solve this problem, you'll need a persistent reference to all the image objects you create. Ideally, this would be a data structure in a class namespace, but since you aren't using any classes, a module-level list will have to do:

pics = [None, None, None, None]   #  This will be the list that will hold a reference to each of your PhotoImages.

def randp(*args):
    w = ['wb.gif', 'wc.gif', 'wd.gif', 'we.gif']
    random.shuffle(w)
    am = 1

    for k, i in enumerate(w):    # Enumerate provides an index for the pics list.
        pic = PhotoImage(file=i)
        pics[k] = pic      # Keep a reference to the PhotoImage in the list, so your PhotoImage does not get garbage-collected.
        ttk.Label(mainframe, image=pic).grid(column=am, row=0, sticky=(W, E))
        am+=1