python - Disabling tkinter ttk scale widget

Question

I am trying to disable all of the (ttk) widgets in a frame, but it appears that the scale widget is giving me some trouble, as it throws the following exception:

_tkinter.TclError: unknown option "-state"

Some relevant code:

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import ttk

def disable_widgets(parent):
    for child in parent.winfo_children():
        child.config(state = 'disabled')

root = tk.Tk()

# Frame full of widgets to toggle
frame_of_widgets = ttk.Frame(root)
frame_of_widgets.pack()

# Button to be disabled
button_to_disable = ttk.Button(frame_of_widgets)
button_to_disable.pack()

# Entry to be disabled
entry_to_disable = ttk.Entry(frame_of_widgets)
entry_to_disable.pack()

# Scale to be disabled
scale_to_disable = ttk.Scale(frame_of_widgets)
scale_to_disable.pack()

# Button that disables widgets in frame
disable_button = ttk.Button(root,text="Disable",command= lambda: disable_widgets(frame_of_widgets))
disable_button.pack()

root.mainloop()

It works for the button and entry, but not for the scale. I thought one of the benefits of ttk was making widgets more uniform with common methods and attributes, so I am guessing perhaps I am accessing all three of these widgets incorrectly?

Answer 1

For ttk widgets you use the state method. The state method for buttons and entry widgets are just a convenience function to mimic the standard button and entry widgets.

You can rewrite your function like this:

def disable_widgets(parent):
    for child in parent.winfo_children():
        child.state(["disabled"])

ttk states are mentioned in the ttk documentation here (though the description borders on useless): https://docs.python.org/3.1/library/tkinter.ttk.html#widget-states