Re: [Plplot-devel] cvs head versus Tcl/Tk 8.4.1

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2002, Geoffrey Furnish wrote:

> I think my app does not specifically have to do the Pltcl/Pltk tie-in
> during AppInit.  I don't have other init-time compiled code that needs
> plframe.  So, if we had it so that "package require Pltk" was
> serviceable, then maybe I wouldn't have to mimick pltcl's startup
> code.
>
> I haven't looked at this for a while.  My recollection was that pltcl
> was pretty sophisticated, and it paid to mimick it carefully.  I'm not
> sure we can really recover exactly what we need, using only a package
> based approach.  I hope so, but I would regard that as somewhat
> innovative, starting from where I think we are.  But maybe my memory
> on this paints the beast larger than life.  I'll have to go back and
> look at this, at some point.
>
> Anyway, my point is this.  For sure, apps need to be able to get
> plframe registered in their own custom Tcl_Interp *.  The way I have
> always done this, is to call Pltcl_init/Pltk_init, which requires
> plplot-config --libs to tell all that is required for that to work.
> That requirement could maybe be dropped, if there was a Tcl-level way
> to get plframe installed in the interpreter.  That's the TEA branch
> stuff.  I know its worked for Vince in that context, but I don't think
> we have this full capability on cvs head yet, do we?

I believe we already have the capability that you need. For example, right
now plframe is directly available from wish just like in the tea branch long
ago.  The recipe for setting that up is in
plplot/examples/tk/README.tkdemos.

But regardless of that issue plplot-config definitely needs options for any
user that develops apps that include reference to library symbols for some
of our additional libraries such as libplplottcltk. I have just put a note
to that effect in PROBLEMS so we will deal with this before the release.

Alan