Python/Tkinter right aligned cascading menu

Question

I am using Tkinter / Python, and I have written the following code:

from Tkinter import *
from ScrolledText import *

#dummy function to be changed later
def dummy():
    print 'Oont ooncha, oont ki peeth oonchi, neechi oonth ki poonch!'

#create your main window
root = Tk(className = 'Mere Bhains wala Editor')

#mera menu
my_menu = Menu(root)

#attach this menu to the the application
root.config(menu = my_menu)

#create my file menu
filemenu = Menu(my_menu)
filemenu.add_command(label = 'New', command = dummy)
filemenu.add_command(label = 'Open', command = dummy)
filemenu.add_separator()
filemenu.add_command(label = 'Save', command = dummy)
filemenu.add_command(label = 'Save as', command = dummy)

my_menu.add_cascade(label = 'File', menu = filemenu)


#create Help menu
helpmenu = Menu(my_menu)
helpmenu.add_command(label = 'Terms of use', command = dummy)
helpmenu.add_command(label = 'Documents', command = dummy)
helpmenu.add_command(label = 'FAQ', command = dummy)
helpmenu.add_separator()
helpmenu.add_command(label = 'Community discussions', command = dummy)
helpmenu.add_command(label = 'Report issue', command = dummy)
helpmenu.add_command(label = 'Search issues', command = dummy)

my_menu.add_cascade(label = 'Help', menu = helpmenu)

#create the scrolled text area
textpad = ScrolledText(root, width=640, height = 480)
textpad.pack()

# run the window as the application
root.mainloop()

If I run this code, then I get two cascading menus titled File and Help. Now the question,

I want the Help menu to be right aligned, and the File menu to be left aligned. What additional code, has to be put, so that I can achieve this?

Answer 1

Anything you do with the existing Tkinter libraries will be a hack. It just doesn't support right-aligned menu entries. But here are some hacks that can be done:

1. Use a fixed-width font like Courier and space-pad the labels like this helpmenu.add_command(label = ' Terms of use', command = dummy) . Downside is limited font selection because it is more difficult to align proportional fonts.
2. Change all menu labels to images/bitmaps that represent the text. Each image width and height must be the same and aligned manually in the image. Here is a sample using your code and images I created using an arbitrary font in a paint program. Downside here is maintenance. If you want to change a menu entry, you have to create a new image.

But yes, it can be done. How much work you want to put into it and maintain it is probably the question.

Answer 2

You have no control over this. The official tk documentation is very comprehensive and lists everything that is possible, and it doesn't list anything related to alignment.

Answer 3

This issue is solved in Python 3, Python 3 changes the Tkinter version into tkinter version, in tkinter version the above code only need to change the first two lines as below,

from tkinter import *
from tkinter.scrolledtext import ScrolledText