Timed Availability of controls in tkinter GUI - python-3.x

Question

I'm working on a program that will stop users from changing a label after a random amount of time. There are two buttons, start and next, when the user presses start the start button is destroyed but is supposed to come back after a randomly selected amount of time. I tried to have the start button trigger a flag that starts a timer. When the timer reaches a certain value (count_to+1) the flag should go to zero, the start button should reappear, and the label should read end. The flag never seems to switch and the timer never initiates though. Can anyone tell me what I did wrong? and maybe point me towards a solution? Hear is the code:
import sys
from tkinter import *
import random
import time
mGui = Tk()
mGui.geometry('450x450+200+200')
mGui.title('Letters')
stored = ['A', 'b', 'c', 'd']
count_down = [10,20,30,40,50,60]
global count_to
global countFlag
count_to = IntVar()
countFlag = 0
Sec = 0
def run_counter():
count_to = random.choice(count_down)
while countFlag == 1:
Sec+=1
print(sec)
if Sec == count_to+1:
countFlag = 0
newbutton.destroy()
startbutton.grid(row=2,column=1)
phrase.configure(text='End')
return
def change_phrase():
fish = StringVar()
fish = random.choice(stored)
stored.remove(fish)
phrase.configure(text=fish)
#to help with debug
print(countFlag)
print(Sec)
print(count_to)
return
def start_count():
countFlag = True
count_to = random.choice(count_down)
print(countFlag)
startbutton.destroy()
run_counter
return
phrase = Label(mGui,text='Letter',fg='red',bg='blue')
phrase.grid(row=0,column=0, sticky=S,columnspan=2)
startbutton =Button(mGui, text='start',fg='black',bg='green',command=start_count)
startbutton.grid(row=2,column=1)
newbutton = Button(mGui,text='NEXT',fg='black',bg='red',command=change_phrase)
newbutton.grid(row=2,column=0)
#mEntry = Entry(mGui,textvariable=ment)
#mEntry.grid(row=3,column=0)
mGui.mainloop()

Answer 1

Tkinter programming becomes much less messy and confusing once you learn to use classes. Use Tkinter's after() method to call a function every "x" amount of time until the allotted time has elapsed.
import random
import sys
if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
import Tkinter as tk ## Python 2.x
else:
import tkinter as tk ## Python 3.x
class ButtonDisappear():
def __init__(self, root):
self.root=root
self.startbutton=tk.Button(root, text='disappear', fg='black',
bg='green', command=self.disappear)
self.startbutton.grid(row=2,column=1)
self.lab=tk.Label(self.root, text="", bg="lightblue")
def disappear(self):
## remove button
self.startbutton.grid_forget()
## grid label for time
self.lab.grid(row=0, column=0)
## "random" number
self.stop_time=random.choice([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])*1000
self.elapsed=0
self.root.after(100, self.time_it)
def time_it(self):
self.elapsed += 100
## function calls itself until time has finished
if self.elapsed < self.stop_time:
self.lab["text"]="%d of %d" % (self.elapsed, self.stop_time)
self.root.after(100, self.time_it)
## time elapsed so remove label and restore button
else:
self.lab.grid_forget()
self.startbutton.grid(row=2,column=1)
m_gui = tk.Tk()
m_gui.geometry('450x450+200+200')
m_gui.title('Letters')
B=ButtonDisappear(m_gui)
m_gui.mainloop()