How styling is delivered#

ttkbootstrap delivers its styling API through concrete widget subclasses. ttk.Button, ttk.Entry, ttk.Combobox, … are real classes that carry the bootstyle keyword (via BootMixin), so you build widgets from ttkbootstrap and style them inline. Importing the library changes nothing about tkinter — the widgets keep real signatures and docstrings your editor can see.

The one rule to internalize: to get bootstyle, use ttkbootstrap’s widget classes rather than tkinter.ttk’s.

Coming from 1.x

1.x monkey-patched tkinter at import so every ttk widget grew bootstyle, even ones built through plain tkinter.ttk. 2.0 patches nothing at import. To opt back into that global behavior, see The global API (opt-in).

Use ttkbootstrap’s widgets#

Import ttkbootstrap as ttk and build widgets from it:

import ttkbootstrap as ttk

app = ttk.App()

ttk.Button(app, text="Save", bootstyle="success").pack()
ttk.Entry(app, bootstyle="primary").pack()

app.mainloop()

That is the whole delivery model for everyday use — the sections below are for the edges: legacy tk widgets, widgets ttkbootstrap doesn’t ship, and opting back into the old global behavior.

Fluent geometry#

pack, grid, and place (and their *_configure spellings) return the widget, so you can construct and place in one expression:

save = ttk.Button(app, text="Save", bootstyle="success").pack(side="left")

save is the button, not None as it would be with stock tkinter.

Blessed tk widgets#

A few widgets have no ttk equivalent — the toplevels and the classic tk controls. ttkbootstrap ships themed versions that pick up the theme’s colors automatically (via AutoStyleMixin): ttk.Tk, ttk.Toplevel, ttk.Menu, ttk.Text, ttk.Canvas, ttk.Listbox, ttk.TkFrame, and ttk.TkLabel. Use them in place of the tkinter originals and they theme themselves:

ttk.Text(app, height=4).pack()   # background/foreground follow the theme

Widgets you didn’t subclass#

For a third-party ttk widget, or a plain tkinter.ttk one you already created, there are two escape hatches:

A reusable class — bootify(cls) returns a bootstyle-enabled subclass of any ttk widget class:

from third_party import FancyWidget

FancyBoot = ttk.bootify(FancyWidget)
FancyBoot(app, bootstyle="info").pack()

One instance — apply_bootstyle(widget, style) styles a single already-created vanilla widget and returns the resolved style name:
```
import tkinter.ttk as tkttk

legacy = tkttk.Button(app, text="Legacy")
ttk.apply_bootstyle(legacy, "primary")
```

The global API (opt-in)#

enable_global_api() makes vanilla tkinter and tkinter.ttk widgets accept bootstyle and gain fluent geometry, without subclassing. Call it once, before creating widgets:

import tkinter.ttk as tkttk
import ttkbootstrap as ttk

ttk.enable_global_api()

app = ttk.App()
tkttk.Button(app, text="Vanilla", bootstyle="success").pack()

This is opt-in and global — the escape hatch for gradual migration, not the recommended default. New code should prefer ttkbootstrap’s own widget classes.