How do you make buttons of the python library "urwid" look pretty?

Question

The default appearance of a button in urwid is very functional, but in my eyes not very pretty. It can also be irritating when several buttons are side by side in a row.

How can I achieve that a button is displayed with a frame and centered text and changes its color when it gets the focus?

Answer 1

You can draw anything with Urwid that's drawable in the terminal with pure Unicode text, with foreground and background colors assigned per character.

Considering this, it's impossible to draw exactly the same as it is in your mockup, because to draw borders you need to use the Unicode box drawing characters, which would take up more space.

I started writing an example, but sadly don't have time to polish it right now.

I'm sharing here in its unfinished state (working, but selection appearance is buggy), in the hopes that you might find it useful and maybe serve as a good enough starting point for you to fiddle with.

Screenshots:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from __future__ import print_function, absolute_import, division
import urwid


PALETTE = [
    ('normal', '', ''),
    ('bold', 'bold', ''),
    ('blue', 'bold', 'dark blue'),
    ('highlight', 'black', 'dark blue'),
]


def show_or_exit(key):
    if key in ('q', 'Q', 'esc'):
        raise urwid.ExitMainLoop()


class CustomButton(urwid.Button):
    button_left = urwid.Text('[')
    button_right = urwid.Text(']')


def custom_button(*args, **kwargs):
    b = CustomButton(*args, **kwargs)
    b = urwid.AttrMap(b, '', 'highlight')
    b = urwid.Padding(b, left=4, right=4)
    return b


class BoxButton(urwid.WidgetWrap):
    _border_char = u'─'
    def __init__(self, label, on_press=None, user_data=None):
        padding_size = 2
        border = self._border_char * (len(label) + padding_size * 2)
        cursor_position = len(border) + padding_size

        self.top = u'┌' + border + u'┐\n'
        self.middle = u'│  ' + label + u'  │\n'
        self.bottom = u'└' + border + u'┘'

        # self.widget = urwid.Text([self.top, self.middle, self.bottom])
        self.widget = urwid.Pile([
            urwid.Text(self.top[:-1]),
            urwid.Text(self.middle[:-1]),
            urwid.Text(self.bottom),
        ])

        self.widget = urwid.AttrMap(self.widget, '', 'highlight')

        # self.widget = urwid.Padding(self.widget, 'center')
        # self.widget = urwid.Filler(self.widget)

        # here is a lil hack: use a hidden button for evt handling
        self._hidden_btn = urwid.Button('hidden %s' % label, on_press, user_data)

        super(BoxButton, self).__init__(self.widget)

    def selectable(self):
        return True

    def keypress(self, *args, **kw):
        return self._hidden_btn.keypress(*args, **kw)

    def mouse_event(self, *args, **kw):
        return self._hidden_btn.mouse_event(*args, **kw)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    header = urwid.Text('Header')
    footer = urwid.Text('Footer')
    onclick = lambda w: footer.set_text('clicked: %r' % w)
    widget = urwid.Pile([
        header,
        urwid.Text('Simple custom buttons:'),
        urwid.Columns([
            custom_button('OK', on_press=onclick),
            custom_button('Cancel', on_press=onclick),
        ]),
        urwid.Text('Box bordered buttons:'),
        urwid.Columns([
            urwid.Padding(BoxButton('OK', on_press=onclick), left=4, right=4),
            BoxButton('Cancel', on_press=onclick),
        ]),
        footer,
    ])
    widget = urwid.Filler(widget, 'top')
    loop = urwid.MainLoop(widget, PALETTE, unhandled_input=show_or_exit)
    loop.run()