user interface - Using pygame features in Tkinter

Question

I'd like to use some features from pygame (sprite graphics) in my GUI I made in Tkinter. I know of OcempGUI, but I'd prefer to stick to Tkinter, just use some modules from pygame. This is similar but not quite the same. Is this possible at all? What are potential problems (event loop)?

Answer 1

This works on Linux. If you're lucky, it might work on other operating systems as well.

import Tkinter as tk
import os

w, h = 500, 200

# Add a couple widgets. We're going to put pygame in `embed`.
root = tk.Tk()
embed = tk.Frame(root, width=w, height=h)
embed.pack()
text = tk.Button(root, text='Blah.')
text.pack()

# Tell pygame's SDL window which window ID to use    
os.environ['SDL_WINDOWID'] = str(embed.winfo_id())

# The wxPython wiki says you might need the following line on Windows
# (http://wiki.wxpython.org/IntegratingPyGame).
#os.environ['SDL_VIDEODRIVER'] = 'windib'

# Show the window so it's assigned an ID.
root.update()

# Usual pygame initialization
import pygame as pg
pg.display.init()
screen = pg.display.set_mode((w,h))

pos = 0
while 1:
    # Do some pygame stuff
    screen.fill(pg.Color(0,0,0))
    pos = (pos + 1) % screen.get_width()
    pg.draw.circle(screen, pg.Color(255,255,255), (pos,100), 30)

    # Update the pygame display
    pg.display.flip()

    # Update the Tk display
    root.update()