Re: [MACTCL] Run tcl scripts by double clicking

[Bernhard S. <Ber...@gm...>]

Hi Kevin,

On 21.09.2013, at 16:36, Kevin Walzer <kw...@co...> wrote:

> On 9/21/13 8:52 AM, Bernhard Spinnler wrote:
>> So my question is: why hasn't this been implemented this way? Why is this not the default Wish behavior on the Mac? Are there any drawbacks/problems with this approach?
> 
> I can't speak for the design decisions of prior maintainers, but I can 
> think of at least a few reasons why this might not be the optimal approach:
> 
> 1. :tk::mac::OpenDocument is intended to be a general-purpose 
> placeholder for opening documents in Wish, but it is used more often for 
> actually opening and displaying a document in an editor. Re-purposing 
> this command's default mode to executing a Tcl script would cause a lot 
> of complication for apps using the command for other purposes--this 
> includes some of my own apps and apps such as IDLE, the Tk-based editor 
> that ships with MacPython.

Wouldn't IDLE or any other app just redefine :tk::mac::OpenDocument such that it fits their needs, i.e., displaying a document or whatever? Then my original definition of :tk::mac::OpenDocument wouldn't be seen/used any longer.

> 
> 2. There is an argument to be made that automatically executing an 
> arbitrary script may present security issues. MacPython does come with a 
> bundled script launcher app that does what you are looking for, and 
> there's been a lot of debate recently about removing it because of what 
> some argue is the security risk.

Ok, this is a tough one. Of course, it's always a balance act between security and convenience. From what I've read (http://bugs.python.org/issue5262) MacPython Launcher executes .py files but is not set as default application for .py files any longer. I think this is a reasonable approach. I just find it odd that when I actively associate tcl files with Wish and double click on these files, Wish starts up but just sits there and does nothing. (The same result when I drop a tcl file on WIsh). For me the most natural thing to expect from an interpreter as default action would be to interpret/run the script that it was given. Actually, that's exactly the behavior of the command line wish: wish foo.tcl tells wish to run script foo.tcl. Perhaps that behavior could be restricted to scripts having their executable bit set (as suggested in the thread above).

> 
> 3. There are much simpler ways to implement the behavior you're looking 
> for without the overhead of re-defining a central command in Tk-Mac or 
> updating and deploying a full-blown app launcher (I once looked at 
> Launcher's source code and there was a lot going on there).  One is to 
> launch Wish and the script name from Terminal: "wish foo.tcl." That's my 
> preferred method of running scripts. Another way would be to implement a 
> simple AppleScript launcher that is associated with Tcl files (in the 
> manner you've already done with Wish) and runs Wish when a script is 
> double-clicked. Below I've posted the source code for a similar app I 
> wrote years ago that launched Scribus when it was just an X11 app in 
> FInk. I'll leave the modification of it as an exercise for you, but it 
> would achieve exactly what you are looking to do, and if you wanted to 
> share your resulting project with the community, I'm sure plenty of 
> people would find it useful:
> 
> property extension_list : {"sla", "sla.gz", "scd", "scd.gz"}
> 
> on run
> 	display dialog "Scribus will launch after the X11 application has 
> finished launching."
> 	delay 5
> 	tell application "X11"
> 		activate
> 	end tell
> 	delay 10
> 	set theEnv to "export DISPLAY=:0;"
> 	set theBoot to "source /sw/bin/init.sh;"
> 	set theCmd to "/sw/bin/scribus "
> 	do shell script theEnv & theBoot & theCmd
> end run
> 
> 
> on open this_item
> 	set the item_info to info for this_item
> 	if the name extension of the item_info is in the extension_list then
> 		display dialog "Scribus will open this document after the X11 
> application has finished launching."
> 		delay 5
> 		tell application "X11"
> 			activate
> 		end tell
> 		delay 10
> 		set theEnv to "export DISPLAY=:0;"
> 		set theBoot to "source /sw/bin/init.sh;"
> 		set theCmd to "/sw/bin/scribus "
> 		set theFile to quoted form of POSIX path of this_item
> 		do shell script theEnv & theBoot & theCmd & theFile
> 	else
> 		display dialog "Scribus is unable to open this file type."
> 	end if
> end open

Interesting approach. However, I regularly shudder at AppleScript's pseudo human syntax and would rather stay with a pure tcl solution. Also, I don't see any difference in terms of security. Actually, I'm quite happy with my current solution. I just need to remember to apply my modification again in case a new version of Wish comes along.

I was just wondering why on the Mac it's much more difficult to run a tcl script than on Windows (albeit probably less secure). Thanks for providing background and suggestions.

Cheers,
	Bernhard 

> 
> Hope this helps,
> Kevin
> 
> -- 
> Kevin Walzer
> Code by Kevin/Mobile Code by Kevin
> http://www.codebykevin.com
> http://www.wtmobilesoftware.com
> 
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