Aligning Label in Frame Tkinter - python-2.7

Question

I am new to Python and even newer to Tkinter.
I am currently practicing how to use Frames and Labels and
the problem I am encountering is, when I put Labels on a frame with some buttons next to each label,
the alignment is not good to look at.
Here is the code:
from Tkinter import *
class GUI():
def __init__(self):
self.namelist = ["Mark","Anna","Jason","Lenna","Leo","Zucharich","Robinson","AReallyLongNameThatMightExist"]
self.canvas = Canvas(width=1200,height=700)
self.canvas.pack(expand=YES,fill=BOTH)
def Friends(self):
controlframe = Frame(self.canvas)
controlframe.place(x=600,y=300)
#Frame for showing names of friends
for x in self.namelist:
frame = Frame(controlframe)
frame.pack()
Name = Label(frame,text="%s "%x).pack(side=LEFT)
chatButton = Button(frame,text="Chat").pack(side=LEFT)
delButton = Button(frame,text="Delete").pack(side=LEFT)
setcloseButton = Button(frame,text="Set Close").pack(side=LEFT)
setgroupButton = Button(frame,text="Set Group").pack(side=LEFT)
mainloop()
GUI = GUI()
GUI.Friends()
What should I do so that the alignment of the Label(=name) and the button is equal to the other ones so that they will form a shape of a rectangle and not some zigzag?

Answer 1

It is almost always better in Tk to use the grid geometry manager. It is much more flexible once you come to understand how it works. Converting your example to use grid solves your problem as shown below but you should experiment with it a bit. Try removing the 'sticky="W"' from the label for instance and see that the centering of the widgets within the row or column can be controlled. To get your frame responding to resizes sensibly you should investigate the columnconfigure and rowconfigure options for the grid geometry management as well.
from Tkinter import *
class GUI():
def __init__(self):
self.namelist = ["Mark","Anna","Jason","Lenna",
"Leo","Zucharich","Robinson",
"AReallyLongNameThatMightExist"]
self.canvas = Canvas(width=1200,height=700)
self.canvas.pack(expand=YES,fill=BOTH)
def Friends(self):
frame = Frame(self.canvas)
frame.place(x=600,y=300)
#Frame for showing names of friends
row = 0
for x in self.namelist:
label = Label(frame,text="%s "%x)
chatButton = Button(frame,text="Chat")
delButton = Button(frame,text="Delete")
setcloseButton = Button(frame,text="Set Close")
setgroupButton = Button(frame,text="Set Group")
label.grid(row=row, column=0, sticky="W")
chatButton.grid(row=row, column=1)
delButton.grid(row=row, column=2)
setcloseButton.grid(row=row, column=3)
setgroupButton.grid(row=row, column=4)
row = row + 1
mainloop()
GUI = GUI()
GUI.Friends()