What is the easist way to connect a switch button to the GPIO pins?

Question

I am trying to up my pi skills on working with hardware. I would like to connect a few buttons to my gpio pins. I have seen various ways to do so and want to know the simplest non-permanant way. I've looked online and the options are endless. This is my first time ever messing with the gpio pins or any type of hardware (other than usb peripherals) connecting to the pi.

The buttons have tabs that accept crimp connectors, so that will be one end of the wire interface. Now I need to know my options for connecting the wires to the pins.

I have three questions I need answered to help make this decision:

Is there some sort of adaptor to go over the pins to make them female ports? I found some that might do it, but I think they were meant for connecting HATS.

Speaking of HATS, is there a HAT of some sort to make connecting the buttons easier? I am imagining some sort of HAT thay would function like a bread board mounted on top of my pi.

What about an actual breadboard? Is there one that fits on top of the pi? That could be an option too.

Thanks for answering those. If you have any advice about connecting to gpio pins or helpful links about it feel free to add them as a comment.

Answer 1

I suggest you invest in some dupont cables. These are readily available in female-male and female-female versions.

You could cut one end off to solder/crimp to your switches.

If you are planning to do more, I suggest you get a breadboard. These are readily available in many sizes. See https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/pi-101-breadboard/

Many Pi users use a 40pin cable in conjunction with a header to connect to the breadboard. One such is the T-Cobbler, but there are a few others.

Answer 2

Get out the old soldering iron, some F-F jumper wires,

24 stranded (for the crimped tabs)

and fabricate some tabbed-to F wires.