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-
-%Z% $Id: README.binary,v 1.3 1999/01/04 19:25:05 rjohnson Exp $
-
-1. Introduction
----------------
-
-This directory contains the binary distribution of Tcl/Tk 8.0.5 for
-Windows. It was compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 using Win32
-API, so that it will run under Windows NT and Windows 95. The
-information here corresponds to release 8.0. This patch provides
-compatibility with [incr Tcl] 3.0. Tcl 8.0 is a major new release
-that replaces the core of the interpreter with an on-the-fly bytecode
-compiler to improve execution speed. It also includes several other
-new features such as namespaces and binary I/O, plus many bug fixes.
-The compiler introduces a few incompatibilities that may affect
-existing Tcl scripts; the incompatibilities are relatively obscure but
-may require modifications to some old scripts before they can run with
-this version. The compiler introduces many new C-level APIs, but the
-old APIs are still supported. See below for more details. This patch
-release fixes various bugs in Tcl 8.0, plus it adds a few minor
-features to support the TclPro 1.0 tool set and [incr Tcl] 3.0.
-Please check the changes file in the source release for details.
-
-This release also corresponds to Tk 8.0.5. This is a major release with
-significant new features such as native look and feel on Macintoshes
-and PCs, a new font mechanism, application embedding, and proper
-support for Safe-Tcl. See below for details. There should be no
-backward incompatibilities in Tk 8.0.5 that affect scripts.
-
-Note: with this release the Tk version number skips from 4.2 to 8.0.
-The jump was made in order to synchronize the Tcl and Tk version
-numbers.
-
-2. Documentation
-----------------
-
-The best way to get started with Tcl is to read one of the introductory
-books on Tcl:
-
- Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, 2nd Edition, by Brent Welch,
- Prentice-Hall, 1997, ISBN 0-13-616830-2
-
- Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, by John Ousterhout,
- Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 0-201-63337-X
-
- Exploring Expect, by Don Libes,
- O'Reilly and Associates, 1995, ISBN 1-56592-090-2
-
-Other books are listed at
-http://www.scriptics.com/resource/doc/books/
-http://www.tclconsortium.org/resources/books.html
-
-There is also an official home for Tcl and Tk on the Web:
- http://www.scriptics.com
-These Web pages include information about the latest releases, products
-related to Tcl and Tk, reports on bug fixes and porting issues, HTML
-versions of the manual pages, and pointers to many other Tcl/Tk Web
-pages at other sites. Check them out!
-
-3. Installation
----------------
-
-The binary release is distributed as a self-extracting archive called
-tcl80.exe. The setup program which will prompt you for an
-installation directory. It will create the installation heirarchy
-under the specified directory, and install a wish application icon
-under the program manager group of your choice.
-
-With the 8.0.3 patch release, we are no longer supporting use of
-Tcl with 16-bit versions of Windows. Microsoft has completely dropped
-support of the Win32s subsystem. If you still need 16-bit support,
-you can get win32s and the 16-bit thunking dll (tcl1680.dll) from the
-Scriptics web site at ftp://ftp.scriptics.com/pub/tcl/misc.
-
-4. Summary of changes in Tcl 8.0
---------------------------------
-
-Here are the most significant changes in Tcl 8.0. In addition to these
-changes, there are several smaller changes and bug fixes. See the file
-"changes" for a complete list of all changes.
-
- 1. Bytecode compiler. The core of the Tcl interpreter has been
- replaced with an on-the-fly compiler that translates Tcl scripts to
- byte codes; a new interpreter then executes the byte codes. In
- earlier versions of Tcl, strings were used as a universal
- representation; in Tcl 8.0 strings are replaced with Tcl_Obj
- structures ("objects") that can hold both a string value and an
- internal form such as a binary integer or compiled bytecodes. The
- new objects make it possible to store information in efficient
- internal forms and avoid the constant translations to and from
- strings that occurred with the old interpreter. We have not yet
- converted all of Tcl to take full advantage of the compiler and
- objects and have not converted any of Tk yet, but even so you
- should see speedups of 2-3x on many programs and you may see
- speedups as much as 10-20x in some cases (such as code that
- manipulates long lists). Future releases should achieve even
- greater speedups. The compiler introduces only a few minor changes
- at the level of Tcl scripts, but it introduces many new C APIs for
- managing objects. See, for example, the manual entries doc/*Obj*.3.
-
- 2. Namespaces. There is a new namespace mechanism based on the
- namespace implementation by Michael McLennan of Lucent Technologies.
- This includes new "namespace" and "variable" commands. There are
- many new C APIs associated with namespaces, but they will not be
- exported until Tcl 8.1. Note: the syntax of the namespace command
- has been changed slightly since the b1 release. See the changes
- file for details.
-
- 3. Binary I/O. The new object system in Tcl 8.0 supports binary
- strings (internally, strings are counted in addition to being null
- terminated). There is a new "binary" command for inserting and
- extracting data to/from binary strings. Commands such as "puts",
- "gets", and "read" commands now operate correctly on binary data.
- There is a new variable tcl_platform(byteOrder) to identify the
- native byte order for the current host.
-
- 4. Random numbers. The "expr" command now contains a random number
- generator, which can be accessed via the "rand()" and "srand()" math
- functions.
-
- 5. Safe-Tcl enhancements. There is a new "hidden command"
- mechanism, implemented with the Tcl commands "interp hide", "interp
- expose", "interp invokehidden", and "interp hidden" and the C APIs
- Tcl_HideCommand and Tcl_ExposeCommand. There is now support for
- loadable security policies, including new library procedures such as
- tcl_safeCreateInterp.
-
- 6. There is a new package "registry" available under Windows for
- accessing the Windows registry.
-
- 7. There is a new command "file attributes" for getting and setting
- things like permissions and owner. There is also a new command
- "file nativename" for getting back the platform-specific name for a
- particular file.
-
- 8. There is a new "fcopy" command to copy data between channels.
- This replaces and improves upon the not-so-secret unsupported old
- command "unsupported0".
-
- 9. There is a new package "http" for doing GET, POST, and HEAD
- requests via the HTTP/1.0 protocol. See the manual entry http.n
- for details.
-
- 10. There are new library procedures for finding word breaks in
- strings. See the manual entry library.n for details.
-
- 11. There are new C APIs Tcl_Finalize (for cleaning up before
- unloading the Tcl DLL) and Tcl_Ungets for pushing bytes back into a
- channel's input buffer.
-
- 12. Tcl now supports serial I/O devices on Windows and Unix, with a
- new fconfigure -mode option. The Windows driver does not yet
- support event-driven I/O.
-
- 13. The lsort command has new options -dictionary and -index. The
- -index option allows for very rapid sorting based on an element
- of a list.
-
- 14. The event notifier has been completely rewritten (again). It
- should now allow Tcl to use an external event loop (like Motif's)
- when it is embedded in other applications. No script-level
- interfaces have changed, but many of the C APIs have.
-
-Tcl 8.0 introduces the following incompatibilities that may affect Tcl
-scripts that worked under Tcl 7.6 and earlier releases:
-
- 1. Variable and command names may not include the character sequence
- "::" anymore: this sequence is now used as a namespace separator.
-
- 2. The semantics of some Tcl commands have been changed slightly to
- maximize performance under the compiler. These incompatibilities
- are documented on the Web so that we can keep the list up-to-date.
- See the URL http://www.sunlabs.com/research/tcl/compiler.html.
-
- 3. 2-digit years are now parsed differently by the "clock" command
- to handle year 2000 issues better (years 00-38 are treated as
- 2000-2038 instead of 1900-1938).
-
- 4. The old Macintosh commands "cp", "mkdir", "mv", "rm", and "rmdir"
- are no longer supported; all of these features are now available on
- all platforms via the "file" command.
-
- 5. The variable tcl_precision is now shared between interpreters
- and defaults to 12 digits instead of 6; safe interpreters cannot
- modify tcl_precision. The new object system in Tcl 8.0 causes
- floating-to-string conversions (and the associated rounding) to
- occur much less often than in Tcl 7.6, which can sometimes cause
- behavioral changes.
-
- 6. The C APIs associated with the notifier have changed substantially.
-
- 7. The procedures Tcl_CreateModalTimeout and Tcl_DeleteModalTimeout
- have been removed.
-
- 8. Tcl_CreateFileHandler and Tcl_DeleteFileHandler now take Unix
- fd's and are only supported on the Unix platform. Please use the
- Tcl_CreateChannelHandler interface instead.
-
- 9. The C APIs for creating channel drivers have changed as part of
- the new notifier implementation. The Tcl_File interfaces have been
- removed. Tcl_GetChannelFile has been replaced with
- Tcl_GetChannelHandle. Tcl_MakeFileChannel now takes a platform-
- specific file handle. Tcl_DriverGetOptionProc procedures now take
- an additional interp argument.
-
-5. Summary of changes in Tk 8.0
--------------------------------
-
-Here is a list of the most important new features in Tk 8.0. The
-release also includes several smaller feature changes and bug fixes.
-See the "changes" file for a complete list of all changes.
-
- 1. Native look and feel. The widgets have been rewritten to provide
- (nearly?) native look and feel on the Macintosh and PC. Many
- widgets, including scrollbars, menus, and the button family, are
- implemented with native platform widgets. Others, such as entries
- and texts, have been modified to emulate native look and feel.
- These changes are backwards compatible except that (a) some
- configuration options are now ignored on some platforms and (b) you
- must use the new menu mechanism described below to native look and
- feel for menus.
-
- 2. There is a new interface for creating menus, where a menubar is
- implemented as a menu widget instead of a frame containing menubuttons.
- The -menu option for a toplevel is used to specify the name of the
- menubar; the menu will be displayed *outside* the toplevel using
- different mechanisms on each platform (e.g. on the Macintosh the menu
- will appear at the top of the screen). See the menu demos in the
- widget demo for examples. The old style of menu still works, but
- does not provide native look and feel. Menus have several new
- features:
- - New "-columnbreak" and "-hideMargin" options make it possible
- to create multi-column menus.
- - It is now possible to manipulate the Apple and Help menus on
- the Macintosh, and the system menu on Windows. It is also
- possible to have a right justified Help menu on Unix.
- - Menus now issue the virtual event <<MenuSelect>> whenever the
- current item changes. Applications can use this to generate
- help messages.
- - There is a new "-direction" option for menubuttons, which
- controls where the menu pops up revenues to the button.
-
- 3. The font mechanism in Tk has been completely reworked:
- - Font names need not be nasty X LFDs: more intuitive names
- like {Times 12 Bold} can also be used. See the manual entry
- font.n for details.
- - Font requests always succeed now. If the requested font is
- not available, Tk finds the closest available font and uses
- that one.
- - Tk now supports named fonts whose precise attributes can be
- changed dynamically. If a named font is changed, any widget
- using that font updates itself to reflect the change.
- - There is a new command "font" for creating named fonts and
- querying various information about fonts.
- - There are now officially supported C APIs for measuring and
- displaying text. If you use these APIs now, your code will
- automatically handle international text when internationalization
- is added to Tk in a future release. See the manual entries
- MeasureChar.3, TextLayout.3, and FontId.3.
- - The old C procedures Tk_GetFontStruct, Tk_NameOfFontStruct,
- and Tk_FreeFontStruct have been replaced with more portable
- procedures Tk_GetFont, Tk_NameOfFont, and Tk_FreeFont.
-
- 4. Application embedding. It is now possible to embedded one Tcl/Tk
- application inside another, using the -container option on frame
- widgets and the -use option for toplevel widgets or on the command
- line for wish. Embedding should be fully functional under Unix,
- but the implementation is incomplete on the Macintosh and PC.
-
- 5. Tk now works correctly with Safe-Tcl: it can be loaded into
- safe interpreters.
-
- 6. Text widgets now allow images to be embedded directly in the
- text without using embedded windows. This is more efficient and
- provides smoother scrolling.
-
- 7. Buttons have a new -default option for drawing default rings in
- a platform-specific manner.
-
- 8. There is a new "gray75" bitmap, and the "gray25" bitmap is now
- really 25% on (due to an ancient mistake, it had been only 12% on).
- The Macintosh now supports native bitmaps, including new builtin
- bitmaps "stop", "caution", and "note", plus the ability to use
- bitmaps in the application's resource fork.
-
- 9. The "destroy" command now ignores windows that don't exist
- instead of generating an error.
-
-Tk 8.0 introduces the following incompatibilities that may affect Tcl/Tk
-scripts that worked under Tk 4.2 and earlier releases:
-
- 1. Font specifications such as "Times 12" now interpret the size
- as points, whereas it used to be pixels (this was actually a bug,
- since the behavior was documented as points). To get pixels now,
- use a negative size such as "Times -12".
-
- 2. The -transient option for menus is no longer supported. You can
- achieve the same effect with the -type field.
-
- 3. In the canvas "coords" command, polygons now return only the
- points that were explicitly specified when the polygon was created
- (they used to return an extra point if the polygon wasn't originally
- closed). Internally, polygons are still closed automatically for
- purposes of display and hit detection; the extra point just isn't
- returned by the "coords" command.
-
- 4. The photo image mechanism now uses Tcl_Channels instead of FILEs,
- in order to make it portable. FILEs are no longer used anywhere
- in Tk.
-
- 5. The procedures Tk_GetFontStruct, Tk_NameOfFontStruct,
- and Tk_FreeFontStruct have been removed.
-
-Note: the new compiler in Tcl 8.0 may also affect Tcl/Tk scripts; check
-the Tcl documentation for information on incompatibilities introduced by
-Tcl 8.0.
-
-6. Known Bugs/Missing Features
-------------------------------
-
-- Blocking "after" commands (e.g. "after 3000") don't work on Win32s.
-- Clock command fails to handle daylight savings time boundaries for
- things like "last week".
-- Background processes aren't properly detached on NT.
-- File events only work on sockets.
-- Pipes/files/console/serial ports don't support nonblocking I/O.
-- The library cannot be used by two processes at the same time under
- Win32s.
-- There is no support for custom cursors/application icons. The core
- set of X cursors is supported, although you cannot change their color.
-- Stippling of arcs isn't implemented yet.
-- Some "wm" functions don't map to Windows and aren't implemented;
- others should map, but just aren't implemented. The worst offenders
- are the icon manipulation routines.
-- Under Win32s, you can only start one instance of Wish at a time.
-- Color management on some displays doesn't work properly resulting in
- Tk switching to monochrome mode.
-- Tk seems to fail to draw anything on some Matrox Millenium cards.
-- Send and winfo interps are not currently supported
-- Printing does not work for images (e.g. GIF) on a canvas.
-- Tk_dialog appears in the upper left corner. This is a symptom of a
- larger problem with "wm geometry" when applied to unmapped or
- iconified windows.
-- Some keys don't work on international keyboards.
-- Grabs do not affect native menus or the title bar.
-- PPM images are using the wrong translation mode for writing to
- files, resulting in CR/LF terminated PPM files.
-- Tk crashes if the display depth changes while it is running. Tk
- also doesn't consistently track changes in the system colors.
-
-There may be more that we don't know about, so be sure to submit bug
-reports when you run into problems. If you have comments or bug
-reports for the Windows version of Tcl, please direct them to:
-
-Scott Stanton
-scott.stanton@eng.sun.com
-
-or post them to the newsgroup comp.lang.tcl.
-
-7. Tcl newsgroup
------------------
-
-There is a network news group "comp.lang.tcl" intended for the exchange
-of information about Tcl, Tk, and related applications. Feel free to use
-the newsgroup both for general information questions and for bug reports.
-We read the newsgroup and will attempt to fix bugs and problems reported
-to it.
-
-When using comp.lang.tcl, please be sure that your e-mail return address
-is correctly set in your postings. This allows people to respond directly
-to you, rather than the entire newsgroup, for answers that are not of
-general interest. A bad e-mail return address may prevent you from
-getting answers to your questions. You may have to reconfigure your news
-reading software to ensure that it is supplying valid e-mail addresses.
-
-8. Tcl contributed archive
---------------------------
-
-Many people have created exciting packages and applications based on Tcl
-and/or Tk and made them freely available to the Tcl community. An archive
-of these contributions is kept on the machine ftp.neosoft.com. You
-can access the archive using anonymous FTP; the Tcl contributed archive is
-in the directory "/pub/tcl". The archive also contains several FAQ
-("frequently asked questions") documents that provide solutions to problems
-that are commonly encountered by TCL newcomers.
-
-9. Tcl Resource Center
-----------------------
-Visit http://www.scritics.com/resource/ to see an annotated index of
-many Tcl resources available on the World Wide Web. This includes
-papers, books, and FAQs, as well as extensions, applications, binary
-releases, and patches. You can contribute patches by sending them
-to <patches@scriptics.com>. You can also recommend more URLs for the
-resource center using the forms labeled "Add a Resource".
-
-10. Mailing lists
-----------------
-
-A couple of Mailing List have been set up to discuss Macintosh or
-Windows related Tcl issues. In order to use these Mailing Lists you
-must have access to the internet. To subscribe send a message to:
-
- wintcl-request@tclconsortium.org
- mactcl-request@tclconsortium.org
-
-In the body of the message (the subject will be ignored) put:
-
- subscribe mactcl Joe Blow
-
-Replacing Joe Blow with your real name, of course. (Use wintcl
-instead of mactcl if your interested in the Windows list.) If you
-would just like to receive more information about the list without
-subscribing put the line:
-
- information mactcl
-
-in the body instead (or wintcl).
-
-10. Support and bug fixes
-------------------------
-
-We're very interested in receiving bug reports and suggestions for
-improvements. We prefer that you send this information to the
-comp.lang.tcl newsgroup rather than to any of us at Sun. We'll see
-anything on comp.lang.tcl, and in addition someone else who reads
-comp.lang.tcl may be able to offer a solution. The normal turn-around
-time for bugs is 2-4 weeks. Enhancements may take longer and may not
-happen at all unless there is widespread support for them (we're
-trying to slow the rate at which Tcl turns into a kitchen sink). It's
-very difficult to make incompatible changes to Tcl at this point, due
-to the size of the installed base.
-
-When reporting bugs, please provide a short tclsh script that we can
-use to reproduce the bug. Make sure that the script runs with a
-bare-bones tclsh and doesn't depend on any extensions or other
-programs, particularly those that exist only at your site. Also,
-please include three additional pieces of information with the
-script:
- (a) how do we use the script to make the problem happen (e.g.
- what things do we click on, in what order)?
- (b) what happens when you do these things (presumably this is
- undesirable)?
- (c) what did you expect to happen instead?
-
-The Tcl community is too large for us to provide much individual
-support for users. If you need help we suggest that you post questions
-to comp.lang.tcl. We read the newsgroup and will attempt to answer
-esoteric questions for which no-one else is likely to know the answer.
-In addition, Tcl support and training are available commercially from
-NeoSoft (info@neosoft.com), Computerized Processes Unlimited
-(gwl@cpu.com), and Data Kinetics (education@dkl.com).
-
-11. Tcl version numbers
-----------------------
-
-Each Tcl release is identified by two numbers separated by a dot, e.g.
-6.7 or 7.0. If a new release contains changes that are likely to break
-existing C code or Tcl scripts then the major release number increments
-and the minor number resets to zero: 6.0, 7.0, etc. If a new release
-contains only bug fixes and compatible changes, then the minor number
-increments without changing the major number, e.g. 7.1, 7.2, etc. If
-you have C code or Tcl scripts that work with release X.Y, then they
-should also work with any release X.Z as long as Z > Y.
-
-Alpha and beta releases have an additional suffix of the form b1 or b1.
-For example, Tcl 7.0b1 is the first beta release of Tcl version 7.0,
-Tcl 7.0b2 is the second beta release, and so on. A beta release is an
-initial version of a new release, used to fix bugs and bad features before
-declaring the release stable. An alpha release is like a beta release,
-except it's likely to need even more work before it's "ready for prime
-time". New releases are normally preceded by one or more alpha and beta
-releases. We hope that lots of people will try out the alpha and beta
-releases and report problems. We'll make new alpha/beta releases to fix
-the problems, until eventually there is a beta release that appears to
-be stable. Once this occurs we'll make the final release.
-
-We can't promise to maintain compatibility among alpha and beta releases.
-For example, release 7.1b2 may not be backward compatible with 7.1b1, even
-though the final 7.1 release will be backward compatible with 7.0. This
-allows us to change new features as we find problems during beta testing.
-We'll try to minimize incompatibilities between beta releases, but if
-a major problem turns up then we'll fix it even if it introduces an
-incompatibility. Once the official release is made then there won't
-be any more incompatibilities until the next release with a new major
-version number.
-
-Patch releases have a suffix such as p1 or p2. These releases contain
-bug fixes only. A patch release (e.g Tcl 7.6p2) should be completely
-compatible with the base release from which it is derived (e.g. Tcl
-7.6), and you should normally use the highest available patch release.
-
-As of 8.0.3, the patch releases use a second . instead of 'p'. So, the
-8.0 release went to 8.0p1, 8.0p2, and 8.0.3. The alphas and betas will
-still use the 'a' and 'b' letters in their tcl_patchLevel.
-
-12. Linking against the binary release
---------------------------------------
-
-In order to link your applications against the .dll files shipped with
-this release, you will need to use the appropriate .lib file for your
-compiler. In the lib directory of the installation directory, there
-are library files for the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler:
-
- tcl80vc.lib
- tk80vc.lib
-
-13. Building dynamically loadable extensions
---------------------------------------------
-
-Please refer to the example dynamically loadable extension provided on
-our ftp site:
-
- ftp://ftp.scriptics.com/pub/tcl/misc/example.zip
-
-This archive contains a template that you can use for building
-extensions that will be loadable on Unix, Windows, and Macintosh
-systems.
+Tcl/Tk 8.1b3 for Windows, Binary Distribution + +RCS: @(#) $Id: README.binary,v 1.4 1999/04/16 00:48:06 stanton Exp $ + +1. Introduction +--------------- + +This directory contains the binary distribution of Tcl/Tk 8.1b3 for +Windows. It was compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 using Win32 +API, so that it will run under Windows NT and Windows 95. The +information here corresponds to the second beta release of 8.1. + +2. Documentation +---------------- + +The best way to get started with Tcl is to read one of the introductory +books on Tcl: + + Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, 2nd Edition, by Brent Welch, + Prentice-Hall, 1997, ISBN 0-13-616830-2 + + Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, by John Ousterhout, + Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 0-201-63337-X + + Exploring Expect, by Don Libes, + O'Reilly and Associates, 1995, ISBN 1-56592-090-2 + +Other books are listed at +http://www.scriptics.com/resource/doc/books/ +http://www.tclconsortium.org/resources/books.html + +There is also an official home for Tcl and Tk on the Web: + http://www.scriptics.com +These Web pages include information about the latest releases, products +related to Tcl and Tk, reports on bug fixes and porting issues, HTML +versions of the manual pages, and pointers to many other Tcl/Tk Web +pages at other sites. Check them out! + +3. Installation +--------------- + +The binary release is distributed as a self-extracting archive called +tcl81.exe. The setup program which will prompt you for an +installation directory. It will create the installation heirarchy +under the specified directory, and install a wish application icon +under the program manager group of your choice. + +We are no longer supporting use of Tcl with 16-bit versions of +Windows. Microsoft has completely dropped support of the Win32s +subsystem. + +4. Summary of changes in Tcl 8.1 +-------------------------------- +The most important changes in Tcl 8.1 are summarized below. See +the README and changes files in the distribution +for more complete information on what has changed, including both feature +changes and bug fixes. + +Internationalization. Tcl has undergone a major +revision to support international character sets: + + +All strings in Tcl are now represented in UTF-8 instead of ASCII, so +that Tcl now supports the full Unicode character set. +The representation of ASCII characters is unchanged (in UTF-8 anything +that looks like an ASCII character is an ASCII character), but +characters with the high-order bit set, such as those in ISO-8859, +are represented with multi-byte sequences, as are all Unicode +characters with values greater than 127. This change does not affect +Tcl scripts but it does affect C code that parses strings. +Tcl automatically translates between UTF-8 and the normal encoding for +the platform during interactions with the system. + +In Tcl scripts the backslash sequence \u can be used to enter +16-bit Unicode characters. \o and \x generate +only 8-bit characters as before. + +The fconfigure command now supports a -encoding +option for specifying the encoding of an open file or socket. Tcl will +automatically translate between the specified encoding and UTF-8 during +I/O. See the directory library/encoding to find out what encodings are +supported (eventually there will be an encoding command +that makes this information more accessible). + +There are several new C APIs that support UTF-8 and various encodings. +See the manual entry Utf.3 for procedures that +translate between Unicode and UTF-8 and manipulate UTF-8 strings. +See Encoding.3 for procedures that create new encodings and +translate between encodings. See ToUpper.3 for procedures +that perform case conversions on UTF-8 strings. + +Binary data. Binary data is handled differently in Tcl 8.1 than in +Tcl 8.0. Tcl 8.1 uses the UTF-8 facilities to represent binary data: +the character value zero is represented with a multi-byte sequence, so +that (once again) strings in Tcl 8.1 never contain null bytes. This +means that binary data is now accepted everywhere in Tcl and Tk (in +Tcl 8.0 the support for binary data was incomplete). If you have C +code that needs to manipulate the bytes of binary data (as opposed to +just passing the data through) you should use a new object type called +"byte array". See the manual entry ByteArrObj.3 for information about +procedures such as Tcl_GetByteArrayFromObj. + +New regular expressions. Tcl 8.1 contains a brand new implementation +of regular expressions from Henry Spencer. This new version supports +almost all of the Perl extensions and it also handles UTF-8 and binary +data. + +Multi-Threading. Tcl 8.1 is multi-thread safe. Each thread can +contain several Tcl interpreters, but a given interpreter can not be +accessed from more than one thread. Each thread runs its own event +loop, and you can post events to other threads. There is not yet +support for tcl level use of threading except for a test +command. (Compile tcltest and try testthread.) Tk 8.1 is not yet +multi-thread safe, and may never be due to limitations of Xlib. + + +What's new in Tk 8.1 + +The most important changes in Tk 8.1 are summarized below. See the +README and changes files in the distribution for more complete +information on what has changed, including both feature changes and +bug fixes. + +1. Internationalization. Tk has undergone a major overhaul to support +the new internationalization features of Tcl. The font package has +been rewritten to support arbitrary Unicode characters; when you +specify a particular font such as "Times 12" Tk may actually use +additional fonts to display Unicode characters that don't exist in the +font you chose. Tk guarantees to find a way to display any Unicode +character regardless of the font you selected, as long as there is +some font in the system that contains the Unicode character. The +input method support in Tk has also been modified to support full +Unicode characters. + +2. Send/DDE support. The send command now works on Windows platforms. +It is implemented using DDE and there is a new dde command that allows +Tk applications to use DDE to communicate with other Windows +applications. send still doesn't work on the Macintosh. + +3. Configuration options. There is a new library of C procedures for +manipulating widget configuration options using Tcl_Objs instead of +strings. This should eventually make Tk much more efficient. Label, +button, checkbutton, radiobutton, and menu widgets have been modified +to use the new library. See SetOptions.3 for information on the new C +APIs. + +4. More Tcl_Obj support. Several additional C library procedures have +been added to support Tcl_Objs. See the manual entries 3DBorder.3, +GetAnchor.3, GetBitmap.3, GetColor.3, GetCursor.3, GetFont.3, +GetJustify.3, and GetPixels.3. + +Incompatibilities + +Although the 8.1 releases involve substantial changes to the +implementation of Tcl and Tk, the changes should introduce few +if any compatibility problems for Tcl scripts or extensions. Here +are the compatibility problems that we know of: + +The changes to the regular expression package required a few minor +syntax changes in order to support all the new features: + +- Backslash inside brackets is an escape whereas before it was a + literal character. To specify a literal \ in brackets you must + write \\. + +- Some escapes, such as \d, \s, and \w, now mean special things in a + bracket expression. Other escapes , such as \D, \S, \W, \A and \Z, + are illegal. + +- A { followed by a digit will no longer match those two characters. + Instead, it will start a bound. Such sequences should be rare and + will often result in an error because the following characters will + not look like a valid bound. + +- Backslash followed by an alphanumeric character is either an escape + or an error. Several of the new escapes were treated as literal + characters in earlier versions of Tcl. + +- The matching order has changed slightly. Here is an explanation + from Henry Spencer: + + Both the old package and the new package find the match that starts + earliest in the string. Where things get tricky is when there is more + than one possible match starting at that point, different in either + length or internal details (that is, which subexpressions match where). + + The old package examines possible matches in a complex but well-defined + order, and simply reports the first one it finds. The new package + examines all possible matches simultaneously, and reports the longest. + For example, (week|wee)(night|knights) matches all of "weeknights". + + When two possible matches are of the same length, priority is decided + based on getting the longest possible matches for early subexpressions, + with later subexpressions accepting whatever they can get. This means + that either (wee|week)(kly|ly) or (week*)(k?ly) matches "weekly" as + week-ly, not wee-kly. More subtly, when .*|a.c matches "abc", the .* + matches the whole string and the a.c doesn't even get a chance to + participate. + + When non-greedy quantifiers are used, things get more complicated. If + all quantifiers in a regular expression are non-greedy, the exact same + rules apply except with "longest" replaced by "shortest" everywhere. + When greedy and non-greedy quantifiers are mixed, it's complicated and + difficult to explain. + +Known Problems With These Releases + +Both the internationalization support and the new regular expression +package are large, complicated, and young, which means there are +likely to be lots of bugs. We need your help in finding and fixing +problems. This is particularly important for internationalization, +since we don't have the right equipment or knowledge to test +under very many conditions. Here are some of the most glaring bugs +or missing features that we know of: + +- We haven't been able to test input methods in Tk under Unix to be + sure that the full Unicode character set is being substituted + properly in %A substitutions. This means that it probably doesn't + work. We have been able to test under Windows and the Macintosh. + +- In Tk, PostScript generation does not work correctly for characters + outside the ASCII subset. + +- The threading for Tcl is brand new so there are likely to be bugs, + although it is based on early work done by Richard Hipp. We have + done some testing on a multiprocessor Solaris machine, but none on + Windows or other flavors of UNIX on a multiprocessor. + +6. Known Bugs/Missing Features +------------------------------ + +- Clock command fails to handle daylight savings time boundaries for + things like "last week". +- Background processes aren't properly detached on NT. +- File events only work on sockets and pipes. +- Files/console/serial ports don't support nonblocking I/O. +- There is no support for custom cursors/application icons. The core + set of X cursors is supported, although you cannot change their color. +- Stippling of arcs isn't implemented yet. +- Some "wm" functions don't map to Windows and aren't implemented; + others should map, but just aren't implemented. The worst offenders + are the icon manipulation routines. +- Color management on some displays doesn't work properly resulting in + Tk switching to monochrome mode. +- Tk seems to fail to draw anything on some Matrox Millenium cards. +- Printing does not work for images (e.g. GIF) on a canvas. +- Tk_dialog appears in the upper left corner. This is a symptom of a + larger problem with "wm geometry" when applied to unmapped or + iconified windows. +- PPM images are using the wrong translation mode for writing to + files, resulting in CR/LF terminated PPM files. +- Tk crashes if the display depth changes while it is running. Tk + also doesn't consistently track changes in the system colors. + +There may be more that we don't know about, so be sure to submit bug +reports when you run into problems. If you have comments or bug +reports for the Windows version of Tcl, please use our on-line bug +form at: + +http://www.scriptics.com/support/bugForm.html + +or post them to the newsgroup comp.lang.tcl. + +7. Tcl newsgroup +----------------- + +There is a network news group "comp.lang.tcl" intended for the exchange +of information about Tcl, Tk, and related applications. Feel free to use +the newsgroup both for general information questions and for bug reports. +We read the newsgroup and will attempt to fix bugs and problems reported +to it. + +When using comp.lang.tcl, please be sure that your e-mail return address +is correctly set in your postings. This allows people to respond directly +to you, rather than the entire newsgroup, for answers that are not of +general interest. A bad e-mail return address may prevent you from +getting answers to your questions. You may have to reconfigure your news +reading software to ensure that it is supplying valid e-mail addresses. + +8. Tcl contributed archive +-------------------------- + +Many people have created exciting packages and applications based on Tcl +and/or Tk and made them freely available to the Tcl community. An archive +of these contributions is kept on the machine ftp.neosoft.com. You +can access the archive using anonymous FTP; the Tcl contributed archive is +in the directory "/pub/tcl". The archive also contains several FAQ +("frequently asked questions") documents that provide solutions to problems +that are commonly encountered by TCL newcomers. + +9. Tcl Resource Center +---------------------- +Visit http://www.scritics.com/resource/ to see an annotated index of +many Tcl resources available on the World Wide Web. This includes +papers, books, and FAQs, as well as extensions, applications, binary +releases, and patches. You can contribute patches by sending them +to <patches@scriptics.com>. You can also recommend more URLs for the +resource center using the forms labeled "Add a Resource". + +10. Mailing lists +---------------- + +A couple of Mailing List have been set up to discuss Macintosh or +Windows related Tcl issues. In order to use these Mailing Lists you +must have access to the internet. To subscribe send a message to: + + wintcl-request@tclconsortium.org + mactcl-request@tclconsortium.org + +In the body of the message (the subject will be ignored) put: + + subscribe mactcl Joe Blow + +Replacing Joe Blow with your real name, of course. (Use wintcl +instead of mactcl if your interested in the Windows list.) If you +would just like to receive more information about the list without +subscribing put the line: + + information mactcl + +in the body instead (or wintcl). + +11. Tcl version numbers +---------------------- + +Each Tcl release is identified by two numbers separated by a dot, e.g. +6.7 or 7.0. If a new release contains changes that are likely to break +existing C code or Tcl scripts then the major release number increments +and the minor number resets to zero: 6.0, 7.0, etc. If a new release +contains only bug fixes and compatible changes, then the minor number +increments without changing the major number, e.g. 7.1, 7.2, etc. If +you have C code or Tcl scripts that work with release X.Y, then they +should also work with any release X.Z as long as Z > Y. + +Alpha and beta releases have an additional suffix of the form b1 or b1. +For example, Tcl 7.0b1 is the first beta release of Tcl version 7.0, +Tcl 7.0b2 is the second beta release, and so on. A beta release is an +initial version of a new release, used to fix bugs and bad features before +declaring the release stable. An alpha release is like a beta release, +except it's likely to need even more work before it's "ready for prime +time". New releases are normally preceded by one or more alpha and beta +releases. We hope that lots of people will try out the alpha and beta +releases and report problems. We'll make new alpha/beta releases to fix +the problems, until eventually there is a beta release that appears to +be stable. Once this occurs we'll make the final release. + +We can't promise to maintain compatibility among alpha and beta releases. +For example, release 7.1b2 may not be backward compatible with 7.1b1, even +though the final 7.1 release will be backward compatible with 7.0. This +allows us to change new features as we find problems during beta testing. +We'll try to minimize incompatibilities between beta releases, but if +a major problem turns up then we'll fix it even if it introduces an +incompatibility. Once the official release is made then there won't +be any more incompatibilities until the next release with a new major +version number. + +Patch releases have a suffix such as p1 or p2. These releases contain +bug fixes only. A patch release (e.g Tcl 7.6p2) should be completely +compatible with the base release from which it is derived (e.g. Tcl +7.6), and you should normally use the highest available patch release. + +As of 8.0.3, the patch releases use a second . instead of 'p'. So, the +8.0 release went to 8.0p1, 8.0p2, and 8.0.3. The alphas and betas will +still use the 'a' and 'b' letters in their tcl_patchLevel. + +12. Linking against the binary release +-------------------------------------- + +In order to link your applications against the .dll files shipped with +this release, you will need to use the appropriate .lib file for your +compiler. In the lib directory of the installation directory, there +are library files for the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler: + + tcl81.lib + tk81.lib + +13. Building dynamically loadable extensions +-------------------------------------------- + +Please refer to the example dynamically loadable extension provided on +our ftp site: + + ftp://ftp.scriptics.com/pub/tcl/misc/example.zip + +This archive contains a template that you can use for building +extensions that will be loadable on Unix, Windows, and Macintosh +systems. |