From: Carl B. <ca...@re...> - 2003-04-29 06:01:58
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Hi, I'm still researching things, but haven't tripped across anything specific yet. I thought that maybe someone on this list might be able to point me in the right direction. I'm somewhat of a systems/unix/mac guru and have finally bitten the bullet to switch over my home Mac systems to embrace OS X. I've been looking at the differences between TclTkAqua and PerlTk builds, and am wondering if there is any way to tie the two closer together. I am a Tcl neophyte, so have been reading and have not written anything yet, but based on the distribution, I would guess that TclTkAqua allows a Tcl program/script to use Tk-like widgets in an Aqua or Aqua-like window. Since I'm more skilled at perl, and it seems that PerlTk requires an X-window system such as XDarwin, I was wondering how difficult it would be to meld the interface that PerlTk uses so that it would use Aqua or Aqua-like windows or if anyone is working on this already. I'm looking to work on building a shell-like application with graphic windows but am not sure I really want to foist X in the shape of something like XDarwin on my prospective users. I may be able to built it using Tcl, but am still too inexperienced with Tcl to know it's full capabilities, forking new processes, dup'ing channels, monitoring sub-processes, drawing and changing graphic representations of items on a canvas-like window, etc. Perl/Tk doesn't have everything I want either, in the official install, but I haven't looked at the widgets contributed by the user community yet. How extensible is the TkAqua portion of Tcl-TkAqua? I know, I know... a lot of questions already... but I've not found enough of the answers I need before diving in to prototype my application and I'm looking for advice, and pointers to references so I can resolve my questions. Thanks in advance... any help or pointers will be much appreciated. -Carl |
From: Daniel A. S. <st...@ic...> - 2003-04-29 07:12:00
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Carl, On Tuesday, Apr 29, 2003, at 16:01 Australia/Sydney, Carl Baltrunas wrote: > I am a Tcl neophyte, so have been reading and have not written anything > yet, but based on the distribution, I would guess that TclTkAqua > allows a > Tcl program/script to use Tk-like widgets in an Aqua or Aqua-like > window. indeed, TkAqua uses Carbon and native widgets. > Since I'm more skilled at perl, and it seems that PerlTk requires an > X-window > system such as XDarwin, I was wondering how difficult it would be to > meld > the interface that PerlTk uses so that it would use Aqua or Aqua-like > windows > or if anyone is working on this already. AFAIK, released versions of PerlTk are still based on Tk 8.3, whereas TkAqua is 8.4 and later only. news:comp.lang.perl.tk is the canonical place to ask questions about the progress of this, browsing through the NG quickly it seems that there is now a PerlTk804.024 based on Tk 8.4.0 & Perl 5.8, so PerlTkAqua may not be that far off... I have no experience with PerlTk or its implementation however, so better ask the experts. > I'm looking to work on building a shell-like application with graphic > windows > but am not sure I really want to foist X in the shape of something > like XDarwin > on my prospective users. I may be able to built it using Tcl, but am > still too > inexperienced with Tcl to know it's full capabilities, forking new > processes, > dup'ing channels, monitoring sub-processes, drawing and changing > graphic > representations of items on a canvas-like window, etc. Perl/Tk > doesn't have > everything I want either, in the official install, but I haven't > looked at the widgets > contributed by the user community yet. Depending on what you are looking to do it may be easy to build a GUI in Tcl/Tk and interface it with your existing perl scripts via exec/fileevents etc. In general, IMHO tcl is much easier to learn than Perl and has great online resources in the wiki http://wiki.tcl.tk and news:comp.lang.tcl so it may be easier than you imagine to get something off the ground using just Tcl/Tk... everything you describe certainly sounds very doable using Tcl/Tk and maybe some of the extensions bundled with my TclTkAquaBi distro (e.g. TclX for process management etc). my way want to browse thorugh the links on http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~steffen/tcltk/TclTkAqua/#TclTkAquaBI for documentation/demos for the various extensions in the distro. > How extensible is the TkAqua portion of Tcl-TkAqua? depends on what you mean by extensible... very, in general Cheers, Daniel -- ** Daniel A. Steffen ** "And now for something completely ** Dept. of Mathematics ** different" Monty Python ** Macquarie University ** <mailto:st...@ma...> ** NSW 2109 Australia ** <http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~steffen/> |
From: Rich M. <rd...@cf...> - 2003-05-01 19:21:00
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At 11:01 PM -0700 4/28/03, Carl Baltrunas wrote: >I'm looking to work on building a shell-like application with graphic >windows but am not sure I really want to foist X in the shape of >something like XDarwin on my prospective users. ... I am also interested in using Perl/Tk with TclTkAqua, for many of the same reasons. Apple's X isn't all that bad, particularly if you use Terminal in place of xterm, but it still loses on cut/paste, drag/drop, etc. So, a "native" Perl/Tk would be nice to have. While you're waiting for this to show up, you might want to take a look at CamelBones (http://camelbones.sourceforge.net): CamelBones is a framework that allows many types of Cocoa programs to be written entirely in Perl. It also provides a high-level object- oriented wrapper around an embedded Perl interpreter, so that Cocoa programs written in Objective-C can easily make use of code and libraries written in Perl. Although CB isn't perfect, or as well documented as I'd like, it does allow Perl scripts to use Cocoa, Interface Builder, and Project Builder. The resulting programs are as Mac-friendly as you could wish. If you're planning to _distribute_ the scripts, be warned that they will need to be linked to the version of Perl (e.g., 5.6.0, 8.0) on the user's machine. The Mac OS X Perl mailing list (ma...@pe...): Mailing-List: contact mac...@pe...; run by ezmlm List-Post: <mailto:ma...@pe...> List-Help: <mailto:mac...@pe...> List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:mac...@pe...> List-Subscribe: <mailto:mac...@pe...> carries discussions of CamelBones. I have also covered it a bit in MacTech Magazine (http://www.mactech.com). -r -- email: rd...@cf...; phone: +1 650-873-7841 http://www.cfcl.com/rdm - my home page, resume, etc. http://www.cfcl.com/Meta - The FreeBSD Browser, Meta Project, etc. http://www.ptf.com/dossier - Prime Time Freeware's DOSSIER series http://www.ptf.com/tdc - Prime Time Freeware's Darwin Collection |