TclTkAqua README 
----------------

RCS: @(#) $Id: README,v 1.6.2.8 2005/05/24 04:21:32 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 <limit>

in your script before drawing, in which case only lines thinner that <limit> 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


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.
