How to select at the same time from two Listbox?

python listbox tkinter
directedition picture directedition · Apr 16, 2009 · Viewed 15.1k times · Source 
from Tkinter import *


master = Tk()

listbox = Listbox(master)
listbox.pack()
listbox.insert(END, "a list entry")

for item in ["one", "two", "three", "four"]:
    listbox.insert(END, item)

listbox2 = Listbox(master)
listbox2.pack()
listbox2.insert(END, "a list entry")

for item in ["one", "two", "three", "four"]:
    listbox2.insert(END, item)

master.mainloop()

The code above creates a tkinter window with two listboxes. But there's a problem if you want to retrieve the values from both because, as soon as you select a value in one, it deselects whatever you selected in the other.

Is this just a limitation developers have to live with?

Answer

Jason Coon picture Jason Coon · Apr 16, 2009

Short answer: set the value of the exportselection attribute of all listbox widgets to False or zero.

From a pythonware overview of the listbox widget:

By default, the selection is exported to the X selection mechanism. If you have more than one listbox on the screen, this really messes things up for the poor user. If he selects something in one listbox, and then selects something in another, the original selection is cleared. It is usually a good idea to disable this mechanism in such cases. In the following example, three listboxes are used in the same dialog:

b1 = Listbox(exportselection=0)
for item in families:
    b1.insert(END, item)

b2 = Listbox(exportselection=0)
for item in fonts:
    b2.insert(END, item)

b3 = Listbox(exportselection=0)
for item in styles:
    b3.insert(END, item)

The definitive documentation for tk widgets is based on the Tcl language rather than python, but it is easy to translate to python. The exportselection attribute can be found on the standard options manual page.

Related questions

Get selected item in listbox and call another function storing the selected for it

I have a canvas that calls createCategoryMeny(x) when it is clicked. This function just creates a Toplevel() window, def createCategoryMenu(tableNumber): ##Not interesting below: categoryMenu = Toplevel() categoryMenu.title("Mesa numero: " + str(tableNumber)) categoryMenu.geometry("400x400+100+100") categoryMenu.focus() categoryMenu.grab_…

Read More
Display Listbox with columns using Tkinter?

I'm trying to create a Listbox in Tkinter that has columns. I'm returning from a DB query records and would like to display each entry in it's own column for each record. Looking at Listbox, I feel like there should …

Read More
Default to and select first item in Tkinter listbox

I want to automatically select the first item in the listbox. By selecting the first item, I don't mean simply defaulting to the first item or setting focus on it. I've already achieved that by doing self.listbox.select_set(0). …

Read More