How to highlight a tkinter button in macOS?

Tkinter is a Python-based GUI toolkit used to develop desktop applications. You can build different components using tkinter widgets. Tkinter programs are reliable and support cross-platform mechanisms, though some functions work differently across operating systems.

The Tkinter Button widget in macOS creates native-looking buttons that can be customized using library functions and parameters. You can highlight a button using the default parameter, which sets the default color (blue) that macOS supports natively.

Syntax

Button(parent, text="Button Text", default="active")

Parameters

The default parameter accepts the following values ?

• active − Highlights the button with the default system color (blue on macOS)
• normal − Standard button appearance without highlighting
• disabled − Button appears grayed out and non-interactive

Example

Let us create a simple application with highlighted buttons ?

# Import the library
from tkinter import *

# Create an instance of window
win = Tk()
win.title("Button Highlighting Example")

# Set the geometry of the window
win.geometry("700x350")

# Create a frame
frame = Frame(win)

# Create two buttons
save_btn = Button(frame, text="Save", default="active")
save_btn.pack(side="right", padx=10)

cancel_btn = Button(frame, text="Cancel", default="normal")
cancel_btn.pack(side="left", padx=10)

frame.pack(pady=50)

win.mainloop()

Output

Running the above code will display a frame with two buttons. On macOS, the "Save" button will be highlighted with a blue border, while the "Cancel" button appears normal ?

Platform Differences

On Windows systems, the default="active" parameter may not produce the same visual effect. Windows uses different native styling for buttons ?

Alternative Highlighting Methods

For consistent cross-platform highlighting, you can use custom styling ?

from tkinter import *

win = Tk()
win.geometry("400x200")

# Custom highlighted button
highlighted_btn = Button(win, 
                        text="Highlighted", 
                        bg="#007acc", 
                        fg="white",
                        relief="raised",
                        bd=3)
highlighted_btn.pack(pady=20)

# Normal button
normal_btn = Button(win, text="Normal")
normal_btn.pack(pady=10)

win.mainloop()

Conclusion

Use the default="active" parameter to highlight buttons in macOS with native blue styling. For cross-platform consistency, consider custom bg and fg parameters instead.