Hide tk window when using filedialog

Question

I'm trying to use filedialog.asksavefilename to get a save file path. I am running this code in the IDLE shell and it's a text based interface. This is the function to get the save path:

def getPath():
    root=tk.Tk()
    root.lift()
    root.attributes('-topmost',True)
    root.after_idle(root.attributes,'-topmost',False)
    path = filedialog.asksaveasfilename(defaultextension=".txt", filetypes=(("Text Documents", "*.txt"),))
    root.destroy()

The dialog opened behind other windows, so I used this to make the dialog appear at the front. This works, but there is still an empty window behind it which I don't want. I've tried using root.withdraw() but this just hides everything. I'd like to have only the file dialog open without the empty tk window. Any ideas as to how to do this?

Answer 1

I've found a way to achieve the desired effect:

def getPath():
    root=tk.Tk()
    root.overrideredirect(True)
    root.attributes("-alpha", 0)
    path = filedialog.asksaveasfilename(defaultextension=".txt", filetypes=(("Text Documents", "*.txt"),))
    root.destroy()

I've removed all of the unnecessary lift and topmost parts - they didn't help. I used root.overrideredirect(True) to remove the title bar and root.attributes("-alpha", 0) to make the window 100% transparent, so you can't see it. The only drawback is that the file dialog window flashes when it opens, but that's not too much of a problem.