TclTkAqua README ---------------- RCS: @(#) $Id: README,v 1.13 2005/05/23 20:24:59 das Exp $ This is the README file for the Mac OS X native versions of Tcl & Tk. 1. General ---------- - The tcl-mac mailing list on sourceforge is the canonical place for questions specific to Tcl & Tk on Mac OS X: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tcl-mac (this page also has a link to searchable archives of the list, please check them before asking on the list, many questions have already been answered). - For general tcl/tk questions, the newsgroup comp.lang.tcl is your best bet, but also check the Tcl'ers Wiki for a wealth of information: http://wiki.tcl.tk/ - The wiki has a page listing known bugs in Mac OS X Tcl/Tk (and other tips) http://wiki.tcl.tk/MacOS%20X as well as a page with info on building Tcl/Tk on Mac OS X http://wiki.tcl.tk/Steps%20to%20build%20Tcl/Tk%208.4.0%20on%20MacOS%20X - You should report bugs to the sourceforge bug trackers as usual: Tcl: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=10894&atid=110894 Tk: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=12997&atid=112997 please make sure that your report Tk specific bugs to the tktoolkit bug tracker and not the tcl one. 2. Using TclTkAqua ------------------ - Mac OS X 10.2 (or higher) is required to run TclTkAqua. - Tcl built on Mac OS X 10.3 or higher will not run on 10.2 due to missing symbols in libSystem, however Tcl built on 10.2 will run on 10.3 (but without prebinding and other optimizations). - Wish checks the Resources/Scripts directory in its application bundle for a file called AppMain.tcl, if found it is used as the startup script and the Scripts folder is added to the auto_path. This can be used to emulate the old OS9 TclTk droplets. - If standard input is a special file of zero length (e.g. /dev/null), Wish brings up the tk console window at startup. This is the case when double clicking Wish in the Finder (or using 'open Wish.app' from the Terminal). - Tcl extensions will be found in any of: $HOME/Library/Tcl /Library/Tcl /Network/Library/Tcl /System/Library/Tcl $HOME/Library/Frameworks /Library/Frameworks /Network/Library/Frameworks /System/Library/Frameworks (searched in that order). Given a potential package directory $pkg, Tcl on OSX checks for the file $pkg/Resources/Scripts/pkgIndex.tcl as well as the usual $pkg/pkgIndex.tcl. This allows building extensions as frameworks with all script files contained in the Resources/Scripts directory of the framework. - The Tcl and Tk frameworks contain documentation in html format in the standard location for frameworks: Tcl.framework/Resources/Documentation/Reference/Tcl Tk.framework/Resources/Documentation/Reference/Tk No manpages are installed by default for either tcl or tk. - the frameworks Tcl.framework and Tk.framework can be placed in any of the system's standard framework directories: $HOME/Library/Frameworks /Library/Frameworks /Network/Library/Frameworks /System/Library/Frameworks and 'Wish' as well as /usr/bin/tclsh will work. - /usr/bin/wish is a script that calls a copy of 'Wish' contained in Tk.framework/Resources - if 'Wish' is started from the Finder or via 'open', $argv contains a "-psn_XXXX" argument. This is the Wish's carbon process serial number, you may need to filter it out for cross platform compatibility of your scripts. - the env array is different when Wish is started from the Finder than when it (or tclsh) is invoked from the Terminal, in particular PATH may not be what you expect. (Wish started from the Finder inherits the Finder's environment variables, which are essentially those set in $HOME/.MacOSX/environment.plist and not those set by your shell configuration files). - As of Tk 8.4.7, AquaTk has a version of the low-level drawing primitives using the CoreGraphics routines - the code is primarily due to James Tittle. There were numerous problems with the QD version, mostly due to the different drawing model of QD & Tk. CG also trivially supports dashed lines, and the various end caps & miters. So this is a great improvement. The old QD code is retained for now, just in case there are any compatibility problems. To switch back to the QD drawing, just put: set tk::mac::useCGDrawing 0 in your script before you do drawing. Also the CG drawing can anti-alias line drawing. However, anti-aliased thin lines look washed out, so the threshold for antialiasing is set to 3 pixel width lines. You can change this if you want by putting: set tk::mac::CGAntialiasLimit in your script before drawing, in which case only lines thinner that pixels will not be antialiased. - Quickdraw text antialiasing is enabled by default when available (from 10.1.5 onwards). Changing the global boolean variable '::tk::mac::antialiasedtext' allows to dis/enable antialiasing on the fly from tcl (even for existing text). - the format of binary extensions expected by [load] is that of ordinary shared libraries (.dylib) and not MachO bundles, at present loading of MachO bundles is not supported. - Scrollbars: There are two scrollbar variants in Aqua, normal & small. The normal scrollbar has a small dimension of 16, the small variant 12. Access to the small variant was added in Tk 8.4.2. - Cursors: You can now put up and spin the Classic MacOS spinner, and the counting hands and watch cursor. The way this is done is each of the spinners have a base name: spinning: The circular B&W circular spinner countinguphand: The counting up hand countingdownhand: The counting down hand countingupanddownhand: The counting up then down hand watch: The watch cursor Then to get the sequential variants, add an integer to the end of the base name. So, for instance this code will spin the spinner: proc spinCursor {widget count} { $widget configure -cursor spinning$count after 100 spinCursor [incr count] } This was added in Tk 8.4.2 - If you want to use Remote Debugging with Xcode 1.5 or 2.0, then you need to set the environment variable XCNOSTDIN to 1 in the Executable editor for Wish. That will cause us to force closing stdin & stdout. Otherwise, given how Xcode launches Wish remotely, they will be left open and then Wish & gdb will fight for stdin... 3. Building TclTkAqua --------------------- - Mac OS X 10.2 (or higher) is required to build TclTkAqua on MacOSX. - Apple's Developer Tools CD needs to be installed (the most recent version matching your OS release, but no earlier than December 2002). This CD should have come with Mac OS X retail or should be present as a disk image on new macs that came with OSX preinstalled. It can also be downloaded from http://connect.apple.com (after you register for free ADC membership). - Tcl and Tk are built as a Mac OS X frameworks via the Makefiles in tcl/macosx and tk/macosx, but can also be built directly with the standard unix configure and make buildsystem in tcl/unix resp. tk/unix. - It is still possible to build with Apple's Xcode IDE using the Tcl.pbproj and Wish.pbproj projects but this is not recommended anymore (currently Tcl.pbproj calls through to the tcl/macosx/Makefile; but Wish.pbproj doesn't, so there could be build differences). - Unpack the tcl and tk source release archives and place the tcl and tk source trees in a common parent directory. [ If you don't want have the two source trees in one directory, you'll need to ] [ create the following symbolic link for the build to work as setup by default ] [ ln -fs /path_to_tcl/build /path_to_tk/build ] [ (where /path_to_{tcl,tk} is the directory containing the tcl resp. tk tree) ] [ or you can pass an argument of BUILD_DIR=/somewhere to the tcl and tk make. ] - The following instructions assume the tcl and tk source trees are named "tcl${ver}" and "tk${ver}", respectively, where ${ver} is a shell variable containing the tcl and tk version number (for example '8.4.2'). Setup the shell variable as follows: set ver="8.4.2" ;: if your shell is csh ver="8.4.2" ;: if your shell is sh The source trees will be named this way only if you are building from a release archive, if you are building from CVS, the version numbers will be missing; so set ${ver} to the empty string instead: set ver="" ;: if your shell is csh ver="" ;: if your shell is sh - The following steps will build Tcl and Tk from the Terminal, assuming you are located in the directory containing the tcl and tk source trees: make -C tcl${ver}/macosx make -C tk${ver}/macosx and the following will then install Tcl and Tk onto the root volume (admin password required): sudo make -C tcl${ver}/macosx install sudo make -C tk${ver}/macosx install if you don't have the admin password, you can install into your home directory, instead by passing an INSTALL_ROOT argument to make: make -C tcl${ver}/macosx install INSTALL_ROOT="${HOME}/" make -C tk${ver}/macosx install INSTALL_ROOT="${HOME}/" - The default Makefile targets will build _both_ debug and optimized versions of the Tcl and Tk frameworks with the standard convention of naming the debug library Tcl.framework/Tcl_debug resp. Tk.framework/Tk_debug. This allows you to dynamically link to the debug libraries at runtime by setting setenv DYLD_IMAGE_SUFFIX _debug (c.f. man dyld for more details) If you only want to build and install the debug or optimized build, use the 'develop' or 'deploy' target variants of the Makefiles, respectively. For example, to build and install only the optimized versions: make -C tcl${ver}/macosx deploy make -C tk${ver}/macosx deploy sudo make -C tcl${ver}/macosx install-deploy sudo make -C tk${ver}/macosx install-deploy - The Makefiles can also build a version of 'Wish' that has the Tcl and Tk frameworks embedded in its application package. This allows for standalone deployment of the application with no installation required, e.g. from read-only media. To build & install in this manner, use the 'embedded' target variants of the Makefiles. For example, to build a standalone 'Wish.app' in ./embedded/Applications/Utilities: make -C tcl${ver}/macosx embedded make -C tk${ver}/macosx embedded sudo make -C tcl${ver}/macosx install-embedded INSTALL_ROOT=`pwd`/embedded/ sudo make -C tk${ver}/macosx install-embedded INSTALL_ROOT=`pwd`/embedded/ Notes: * if you've already built standard TclTkAqua, building embedded does not require any new compiling or linking, so you can skip the first two makes. (making relinking unnecessary was added in 8.4.2) * the embedded frameworks include only optimized builds and no documentation. * the standalone Wish has the directory Wish.app/Contents/lib in its auto_path. Thus you can place tcl extensions in this directory (i.e. embed them in the app package) and load them with [package require]. - It is possible to build Tk against an installed Tcl.framework; but you will still need a tcl sourcetree in the location specified in TCL_SRC_DIR in Tcl.framework/tclConfig.sh. Also, linking with Tcl.framework has to work exactly as indicated in TCL_LIB_SPEC in Tcl.framework/tclConfig.sh. If you used non-default install locations for Tcl.framework, specify them as make overrides to the tk/macosx Makefile, e.g. make -C tk${ver}/macosx \ TCL_FRAMEWORK_DIR=$HOME/Library/Frameworks TCLSH_DIR=$HOME/usr/bin sudo make -C tk${ver}/macosx install \ TCL_FRAMEWORK_DIR=$HOME/Library/Frameworks TCLSH_DIR=$HOME/usr/bin The Makefile variables TCL_FRAMEWORK_DIR and TCLSH_DIR were added in Tk 8.4.3.