How can I create a simple message box in Python?

Question

I'm looking for the same effect as alert() in JavaScript.

I wrote a simple web-based interpreter this afternoon using Twisted.web. You basically submit a block of Python code through a form, and the client comes and grabs it and executes it. I want to be able to make a simple popup message, without having to re-write a whole bunch of boilerplate wxPython or TkInter code every time (since the code gets submitted through a form and then disappears).

I've tried tkMessageBox:

import tkMessageBox
tkMessageBox.showinfo(title="Greetings", message="Hello World!")

but this opens another window in the background with a tk icon. I don't want this. I was looking for some simple wxPython code but it always required setting up a class and entering an app loop etc. Is there no simple, catch-free way of making a message box in Python?

Answer 1

Have you looked at easygui?

import easygui

easygui.msgbox("This is a message!", title="simple gui")

Answer 2

In Windows, you can use ctypes with user32 library

from ctypes import c_int, WINFUNCTYPE, windll
from ctypes.wintypes import HWND, LPCSTR, UINT
prototype = WINFUNCTYPE(c_int, HWND, LPCSTR, LPCSTR, UINT)
paramflags = (1, "hwnd", 0), (1, "text", "Hi"), (1, "caption", None), (1, "flags", 0)
MessageBox = prototype(("MessageBoxA", windll.user32), paramflags)

MessageBox()
MessageBox(text="Spam, spam, spam")
MessageBox(flags=2, text="foo bar")

Ref:

• http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/lib/ctypes-function-prototypes.html

Answer 3

On Mac, the python standard library has a module called EasyDialogs. There is also a (ctypes based) windows version at http://www.averdevelopment.com/python/EasyDialogs.html

If it matters to you: it uses native dialogs and doesn't depend on Tkinter like the already mentioned easygui, but it might not have as much features.

Answer 4

The code you presented is fine! You just need to explicitly create the "other window in the background" and hide it, with this code:

import Tkinter
window = Tkinter.Tk()
window.wm_withdraw()

Right before your messagebox.