For years, the Python docs for the tkinter.dnd module (and prior Tkdnd module) have said that it will become deprecated once it has been replaced by TkDND bindings (I can find it back in the Python 2.2 docs – https://docs.python.org/2.2/lib/node508.html). Despite this, I cannot find anywhere that the changes are actually proposed (have I missed something?!).

Attached is a git diff of a draft of proposed changes for the tkinter library, tkinter docs and Windows installer. The changes to the tkinter library are designed so that TkDND is not required where tcl/tk is installed, and in particular I check before any call is made to the library that it has been successfully loaded so as to give the user a more helpful error message.

I don’t feel it is ready to be a PR yet, unless that would be helpful, as I have not been able to extensively test on MacOS (I think I have sufficiently tested on Windows and Linux, though someone is bound to find a problem!). I also don’t feel it is ready for a PR because I would really appreciate if someone could take a serious look at the changes to the installer. I have got it working but I don’t really understand how the installer works and it is quite likely that the TkDND externals should have their own group and bindpath.

On a similar note to the Windows installer, how do we declare to the Linux package maintainers that TkDND is now an optional dependency of Python? I cannot find a file where optional dependencies are mentioned, so is there some mechanism to notify them of the changes?

I want to give credit where it is due and so it should be noted that new docs are very nearly just a “translation” of the TkDND man page and that the changes in the tkinter library are (loosely) based on the TkinterDND bindings.

I also have the relevant files for the cpython-source-deps and cpython-bin-deps repos, but would need someone with write permissions to create a ‘tkdnd’ branch in each of those repos before I create the PRs for them.

I am very new to contributing and so have a few questions on what is expected of me:
1. What is required of a news entry, and where would it go (I am assuming Misc\NEWS.d\next\Library)?
2. Could such a change, though not particularly large for code, be considered a “major new feature” (which would require a PEP)?

If people don’t generally want to add TkDND bindings to the tkinter library, I would instead propose that we remove the note that the tkinter.dnd module will be deprecated (but leave the note about it being experimental).