Creating a multiple Selection using Tkinter (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 12 Jul, 2025

Prerequisites: Python Tkinter – ListBox Widget, Scrollable ListBox in Python-tkinterTkinter is a GUI library in python which is easy to read and understand. In Tkinter, multiple selections can be done using the List box widget. Generally, a Listbox displays different items in the form of a list. A list box widget provides one or more selections of items from a list. There are many options available in a Listbox widget that makes the user select multiple options. By assigning the select mode option as multiple, the user can able to select multiple options. If the select mode option is single then only one option can be selected by the user. The selectmode option of a listbox widget can be single, browse, multiple or extended.

• single - Selects one line of text.
• browse - It is a default option where the user can select one line of text.
• multiple - Selects multiple lines of text without dragging from first line of option to last line.
• extended - User can select and drag adjacent multiple lines of text.

Syntax :

list_box = Listbox(root, options, ....)

Example 1: Python program displaying limited items in the listbox.

Python3 1== `

Python program demonstrating

Multiple selection in Listbox widget

from tkinter import *

window = Tk() window.geometry('100x150')

Choosing selectmode as multiple

for selecting multiple options

list = Listbox(window, selectmode = "multiple")

Widget expands horizontally and

vertically by assigning both to

fill option

list.pack(expand = YES, fill = "both")

Taking a list 'x' with the items

as languages

x = ["C", "C++", "Java", "Python", "R", "Go", "Ruby", "JavaScript", "Swift"]

for each_item in range(len(x)):

list.insert(END, x[each_item])

# coloring alternative lines of listbox
list.itemconfig(each_item,
         bg = "yellow" if each_item % 2 == 0 else "cyan")

window.mainloop()

`

Output :

From the above multiple selection Listbox, the user can select multiple options. As there are limited items in the Listbox that fit into the prescribed size, the user can able to see all the items. But if there are more items to be displayed to the user then all the items are not visible at once in a Listbox. Hence, attaching a scrollbar to a Listbox is necessary if there are more items to be displayed in a list. This can be done by the yscrollcommand option(to scroll vertically) in Listbox.Example 2: Python program displaying List box with attached scroll bar.

Python3 1== `

Python program demonstrating Multiple selection

in Listbox widget with a scrollbar

from tkinter import *

window = Tk() window.title('Multiple selection')

for scrolling vertically

yscrollbar = Scrollbar(window) yscrollbar.pack(side = RIGHT, fill = Y)

label = Label(window, text = "Select the languages below : ", font = ("Times New Roman", 10), padx = 10, pady = 10) label.pack() list = Listbox(window, selectmode = "multiple", yscrollcommand = yscrollbar.set)

Widget expands horizontally and

vertically by assigning both to

fill option

list.pack(padx = 10, pady = 10, expand = YES, fill = "both")

x =["C", "C++", "C#", "Java", "Python", "R", "Go", "Ruby", "JavaScript", "Swift", "SQL", "Perl", "XML"]

for each_item in range(len(x)):

list.insert(END, x[each_item])
list.itemconfig(each_item, bg = "lime")

Attach listbox to vertical scrollbar

yscrollbar.config(command = list.yview) window.mainloop()

`