Re: [TCLCORE] Directions for setting up Tk for macOS/XQuartz

[Kevin W. <kw...@co...>]

Hi Erik,

I did fresh builds of Tcl and Tk for testing on XQuartz and removed the framework builds in /Library/Frameworks to avoid conflicts. For Tcl, pass —disable-corefoundation to configure, and pass —disable-aqua to Tk; for both, run configure from the Unix subdirectory. Then run make/make install/make test. This will give you a normal Unix/X11 build that will run correctly under XQuartz. 

—Kevin

> On Dec 6, 2025, at 7:08 AM, Erik Leunissen via Tcl-Core <tcl...@li...> wrote:
> 
> L.S.
> 
> I'm attempting to get Tk running under macOS/XQuartz. My specific goal is to
> reproduce on my local system the test failures indicated by the test constraint
> "failsOnXQuartz". So I just need to be able to run the test suite from the
> build directory (or directories); I don't need Tk installed for usage by
> a regular user.
> 
> My attempt was without succes. Here is what I did:
> 
> * I already have a working setup for what I think of as a "regular" build,
>  using the command sequence "./configure, make, make test". This setup
>  uses the command line tools, installed with xcode-select --install.
> * I have succesfully installed XQuartz
> * I read the directions for building Tk in section 5 of the README file in the
>  macosx subdir. Alas, I understood little of it, and that's mostly due to
>  the (Apple-specific?) terminology in there, for example "Framework" and
>  "Core Foundation". I don't know what that these terms means in this context.
>  I can't tell whether I need a "Framework build" or not.
> * Disregarding the above, I built Tk similar to what I did for my regular
>  setup, but now using:
> 
>      ./configure --disable-aqua
> 
>  This build completed without errors.
> * However, when running the test suite, doing from the build dir:
> 
>     make test
> 
>  the result of "tk windowingsystem" remains "aqua", where it should be "x11".
> 
> I'm lost and would appreciate very much some direction.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Erik Leunissen.
> --
> 
> 
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