Toykinter Autofill Entry

[Uncle Buddy]

For a long time I tried to use a Tkinter autofill Entry I'd found online, but it worked by waiting for something to select, so it was easy to type faster than the autofill could fill. Not until I asked a question on Stack Overflow ("how can this be fixed") did I realize that I'd never tried to write my own autofill. This turned out to be easy. I used that autofill for a long time and it was reliable but it won't fill out anything till you get to the unique part. So if "Bill" and "Bilbo" are both in the database, it won't fill in till you type the second b.

For my place autofill plans I needed something better, so I started over in JavaScript and it worked. When I got back to this project, I translated that autofill into Python.

This Entry fills in values from a list of nested place strings. It prepends any value that you select to the front of the list, so that if you need to use the same value over and over several times, it's really easy. Generally, the last string you used will fill in after one or two characters. So to fill in "Dallas, Precinct 9, Collin County, Texas, USA", if it was the last string you used that started with a d, you'd just type a d.




import tkinter as tk
from widgets import EntryUnhilited
import dev_tools as dt
from dev_tools import looky, seeline

class EntryAuto(EntryUnhilited):
   '''
       To use this class, after instantiating it, you have to call
       EntryAuto.create_lists(all_items). Other than getting all_items
       (e.g. from a database query), the class is self-contained. Every
       instance of the widget in the same module will use the same autofill
       values, so if that's a problem it will have to be redesigned to
       add a column number parameter (or something) so it knows which list
       to use.
       
   '''


   recent_items = []
   all_items_unique = []

   def create_lists(all_items):
       for item in all_items:
           if item not in EntryAuto.recent_items:
               EntryAuto.all_items_unique.append(item)
       EntryAuto.final_items = EntryAuto.recent_items + EntryAuto.all_items_unique

   def __init__(self, master, autofill=False, values=[], *args, **kwargs):
       EntryUnhilited.__init__(self, master, *args, **kwargs)

       self.master = master
       self.autofill = autofill
       
       self.bind("<KeyPress>", self.detect_pressed)
       self.bind("<KeyRelease>", self.get_typed)
       self.bind("<FocusOut>", self.prepend_match, add="+")
       self.bind("<FocusIn>", self.deselect, add="+")

   def detect_pressed(self, evt):
       '''
           runs on every key press
       '''
       if self.autofill is False:
           return
       key = evt.keysym
       if len(key) == 1:
           self.pos = self.index('insert')
           keep = self.get()[0:self.pos]
           self.delete(0, 'end')
           self.insert(0, keep)

   def get_typed(self, evt):
       '''
           runs on every key release; filters out non-alpha-numeric
           keys; runs the functions not triggered by events.
       '''
       if self.autofill is False:
           return
       key = evt.keysym
       if len(key) == 1:
           hits = self.match_string()
           self.show_hits(hits, self.pos)

   def match_string(self):
       hits = []
       got = self.get()
       use_list = EntryAuto.final_items
       for item in use_list:
           if item.lower().startswith(got.lower()):
               hits.append(item)
       return hits

   def show_hits(self, hits, pos):
       cursor = pos + 1
       if len(hits) != 0:
           self.delete(0, 'end')
           self.insert(0, hits[0])
           self.icursor(cursor)

   def prepend_match(self, evt):
       content = self.get()
       print("line", looky(seeline()).lineno, "content:", content)
       if content in EntryAuto.final_items:
           idx = EntryAuto.final_items.index(content)
           del EntryAuto.final_items[idx]
           EntryAuto.final_items.insert(0, content)
       print("line", looky(seeline()).lineno, "EntryAuto.final_items[0]:", EntryAuto.final_items[0])

   def deselect(self, evt):
       '''
           This callback was added because something in the code for this
           widget caused the built-in replacement of selected text with
           typed text to stop working. So if you
           tabbed into an autofill entry that already had text in it, the text
           was all selected as expected but if you typed, the typing was added
           to the end of the existing text instead of replacing it, which is
           unexpected. Instead of finding out why this is happening, I added
           this callback so that tabbing into a filled-out autofill will not
           select its text. This might be better since the value in the field
           is not often changed and should not be easy to change by mistake.
       '''
       self.select_clear()

if __name__ == "__main__":

   all_items = [
       "Flagstaff, Coconino County, Arizona",
       "Fond du Lac, USA",
       "Fort Pierce, USA",
       "Fort Morgan, USA",
       "Flagstaff, USA",
       "Fairmont, USA",
       "Fitchburg, USA",
       "Falmouth, USA",
       "Flagstaff, Arizona, USA",
       "Fairbanks, USA",
       "Florissant, USA",
       "Florence, USA",
       "Fairfax, USA",
       "Farmington, USA",
       "Fayetteville, USA",
       "Fort Kent, USA",
       "Forrest City, USA",
       "Freeport, USA",
       "Fort Benton, USA",
       "Fort Barbour, UK",
       "Fort Worth, USA",
       "Fort Lee, USA",
       "Florida, USA",
       "Flemington, Italy",
       "Frederick, USA",
       "Findlay, USA",
       "Fredericksburg, USA",
       "Fairfield, USA",
       "Fernandina Beach, USA",
       "Ferguson, USA",
       "Fallon, USA",
       "Fitzgerald, USA",
       "Franklin, USA",
       "Fort Valley, USA",
       "Fulton, USA",
   ]

   root = tk.Tk()

   autofill = EntryAuto(root, autofill=True, width=40)
   autofill.grid()
   autofill.focus_set()

   traverse = Entry(root)
   traverse.grid()

   autofill2 = EntryAuto(root, autofill=True, width=40)
   autofill2.grid()
   EntryAuto.create_lists(all_items)
   root.mainloop()