CODEWITHSUNDEEP
labeltcltk-toolkit
SIMEL
SIMEL

Reputation: 8939

How to make the text in a Tk label selectable?

I'm creating labels in Tcl Tk, but their text is not selectable (for copy-paste). How do I make is selectable?

I crate the labels using:

set n 0
foreach t $list_of_labels {
    incrr n
    set lbl2 [label .prop_menu.main_frame.val_$n    -text $t]
    grid $lbl2 ...
}

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2270

Answers (3)

SIMEL
SIMEL

Reputation: 8939

I solved it by using read only entries, I replaced the creation of the label with:

set lbl2 [entry .prop_menu.main_frame.val_$n -relief flat]
$lbl2 insert 0 $t
$lbl2 configure -state readonly

And was able to create entries that act like labels but are selectable.

Upvotes: 0

Donal Fellows
Donal Fellows

Reputation: 137707

For the text in a label to be selectable en masse, there have to be bindings applied so that the program knows when to select it (as opposed to something else) and there has to be some code to place the code into the selection (or rather the clipboard). The latter is actually pretty simple to do with the clipboard command:

clipboard clear
clipboard append $text

The awkward bit is setting up the bindings and showing that the selection has happened. The simplest is just to do something lame like this (binding to a mouse click):

bind .lbl <1> {
    clipboard clear
    clipboard append [%W cget -text]
    bell
}

OK, that's definitely lame; you can do better! What you won't get is the style of highlighting that Windows's own built in labels often support (where you can drag out a selection and just press Ctrl+C) as that requires the ability to draw the highlight, which Tk's label widgets simply don't have. (You can hack something with entries, but they can't do multiple lines of text, or you could use a text widget but then you have to do a lot of work with bindings to make it behave as you want.)

Upvotes: 1

patthoyts
patthoyts

Reputation: 33203

You can't without taking a lot of the binding code from some other widget and applying it to your label. If you need this, you would be better taking an entry widget and making it look like a label. Something like:

entry .e1 -textvar t -relief flat -background [$parentWindow cget -background]

If you don't want the focus to move to these then add -takefocus 0.

Upvotes: 1

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