What is the purpose of PanedWindow in Python?

PanedWindow is a small widget in the Python Tkinter library that is used to create resizable panes. It divides the window into multiple resizable areas, allowing users to adjust the size of each area as needed.

The PanedWindow allows for the creation of divided panels in both vertical and horizontal directions. Users can adjust the size of the panels by dragging the separator bar, thereby changing the width (for horizontal orientation) or height (for vertical orientation) of each area.

PanedWindows are typically used to create multiple panes, panels, or sub-windows in a user interface, allowing users to customize layout and size as needed. It can be used to create complex interfaces like split-pane editors, IDEs (Integrated Development Environments), and more.

Here is a simple example using PanedWindow:

import tkinter as tk

root = tk.Tk()

paned_window = tk.PanedWindow(root, orient=tk.HORIZONTAL)
paned_window.pack(fill=tk.BOTH, expand=True)

left_frame = tk.Frame(paned_window, bg='red')
right_frame = tk.Frame(paned_window, bg='blue')

paned_window.add(left_frame)
paned_window.add(right_frame)

root.mainloop()

In the example above, we used a PanedWindow to create a horizontal split window, with the left pane having a red background and the right pane having a blue background. Users can adjust the size of the panes by dragging the separator bar.