Is There A Way To Rotate Text Around (or Inside) A Circle?

typical spinning wheelI am making a spinning wheel in Python tKinter. Usually, when you spin the wheel, you land on a random slice on the wheel, where the random choice is the text

Solution 1:

As a simple example of a text block rotating along a circular path, you could do something like this.

import math
import tkinter as tk


def rotate(angle=0):
    x = math.cos(angle) * 200 + 250
    y = math.sin(angle) * 200 + 250
    canvas.coords(txt, x, y)
    canvas.after(100, rotate, angle+0.1)

root = tk.Tk()
canvas = tk.Canvas(root, width=500, height=500)

txt = canvas.create_text(250, 50, text='around and around')
rotate()
canvas.pack()
root.mainloop()

[Edit] building on @Novel suggestion that tcl8.6 has added a rotate feature, here is an example where the text rotates along a circular path, and changes orientation:

import math
import tkinter as tk


def rotate(angle1=0, angle2=0):
    dx = math.cos(angle1) * 200 + 250
    dy = math.sin(angle1) * 200 + 250
    canvas.coords(txt, dx, dy)
    canvas.itemconfig(txt, angle=angle2)
    canvas.after(100, rotate, angle1+0.1, angle2-15)

root = tk.Tk()
canvas = tk.Canvas(root, width=500, height=500)

txt = canvas.create_text(250, 50, text='around and around')
rotate()
canvas.pack()
root.mainloop()

Solution 2:

You can rotate the text. Tcl 8.6 added this feature.

import tkinter as tk

defrotate(angle=0):
    canvas.itemconfig(txt, angle=angle)
    canvas.after(100, rotate, angle+5)

root = tk.Tk()
canvas = tk.Canvas(root, width=500, height=500)

txt = canvas.create_text(250, 250, text='around and around')
rotate()
canvas.pack()
root.mainloop()

If you combine these 2 answers you can get what you want, where you change the rotation AND location of each text.

import math
import tkinter as tk

def rotate(angle=0):
    x = math.cos(math.radians(angle)) * 200 + 250
    y = math.sin(math.radians(angle)) * 200 + 250
    canvas.itemconfig(txt, angle=-angle)
    canvas.coords(txt, x, y)
    canvas.after(100, rotate, angle+5)

root = tk.Tk()
canvas = tk.Canvas(root, width=500, height=500)

txt = canvas.create_text(250, 250, text='around and around')
rotate()
canvas.pack()
root.mainloop()