261 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
261 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
The Tk Toolkit
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SCCS: @(#) README 1.36 96/10/07 10:21:13
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1. Introduction
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---------------
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This directory and its descendants contain the sources and documentation
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for Tk, an X11 toolkit implemented with the Tcl scripting language. The
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information here corresponds to Tk 4.2. This release is designed to work
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with Tcl 7.6 and may not work with any other version of Tcl.
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This is a minor release. The main changes are a revision of the
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gridder, a new set of standard dialog boxes, and a new virtual event
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mechanism. See below for details. There should be no backward
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incompatibilities in Tk 4.2 except for two small changes related to
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the gridder.
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2. Documentation
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----------------
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The best way to get started with Tk is to read one of the introductory
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books on Tcl and Tk:
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Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, by John Ousterhout,
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Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 0-201-63337-X
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Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, by Brent Welch,
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Prentice-Hall, 1995, ISBN 0-13-182007-9
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Exploring Expect, by Don Libes,
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O'Reilly and Associates, 1995, ISBN 1-56592-090-2
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The "doc" subdirectory in this release contains a complete set of
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reference manual entries for Tk. Files with extension ".1" are for
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programs such as wish; files with extension ".3" are for C library
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procedures; and files with extension ".n" describe Tcl commands. To
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print any of the manual entries, cd to the "doc" directory and invoke
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your favorite variant of troff using the normal -man macros, for example
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ditroff -man wish.1
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to print wish.1. If Tk has been installed correctly and your "man"
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program supports it, you should be able to access the Tcl manual entries
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using the normal "man" mechanisms, such as
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man wish
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If you are porting Tk 3.6 scripts to Tk 4.0 or later releases, you may
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find the Postscript file doc/tk4.0.ps useful. It is a porting guide
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that summarizes the new features and discusses how to deal with the
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changes in Tk 4.0 that are not backwards compatible.
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There is also an official home for Tcl and Tk on the Web:
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http://www.smli.com/research/tcl
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These Web pages include release updates, reports on bug fixes and porting
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issues, HTML versions of the manual pages, and pointers to many other
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Tcl/Tk Web pages at other sites. Check them out!
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3. Compiling and installing Tk
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------------------------------
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This release contains everything you should need to compile and run
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Tk under UNIX, Macintoshes, and PCs (either Windows NT, Windows 95,
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or Win 3.1 with Win32s).
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Before trying to compile Tk you should do the following things:
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(a) Check for a binary release. Pre-compiled binary releases are
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available now for PCs and Macintoshes, and several flavors of
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UNIX. Binary releases are much easier to install than source
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releases. To find out whether a binary release is available for
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your platform, check the home page for the Sun Tcl/Tk project
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(http://www.sunlabs.com/research/tcl) and also check in the FTP
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directory from which you retrieved the base distribution.
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(b) Make sure you have the most recent patch release. Look in the
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FTP directory from which you retrieved this distribution to see
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if it has been updated with patches. Patch releases fix bugs
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without changing any features, so you should normally use the
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latest patch release for the version of Tk that you want.
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Patch releases are available in two forms. A file like
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tk4.2p1.tar.Z is a complete release for patch level 1 of Tk
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version 4.2. If there is a file with a higher patch level than
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this release, just fetch the file with the highest patch level
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and use it.
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Patches are also available in the form of patch files that just
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contain the changes from one patch level to another. These
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files have names like tk4.2p1.patch, tk4.2p2.patch, etc. They
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may also have .gz or .Z extensions to indicate compression. To
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use one of these files, you apply it to an existing release with
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the "patch" program. Patches must be applied in order:
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tk4.2p1.patch must be applied to an unpatched Tk 4.2 release
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to produce a Tk 4.2p1 release; tk4.2p2.patch can then be
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applied to Tk 4.2p1 to produce Tk 4.2p2, and so on. To apply an
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uncompressed patch file such as tk4.2p1.patch, invoke a shell
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command like the following from the directory containing this
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file:
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patch -p < tk4.2p1.patch
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If the patch file has a .gz extension, it was compressed with
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gzip. To apply it, invoke a command like the following:
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gunzip -c tk4.2p1.patch.gz | patch -p
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If the patch file has a .Z extension, it was compressed with
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compress. To apply it, invoke a command like the following:
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zcat tk4.2p1.patch.Z | patch -p
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If you're applying a patch to a release that has already been
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compiled, then before applying the patch you should cd to the
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"unix" subdirectory and type "make distclean" to restore the
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directory to a pristine state.
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Once you've done this, change to the "unix" subdirectory if you're
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compiling under UNIX, "win" if you're compiling under Windows, or
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"mac" if you're compiling on a Macintosh. Then follow the instructions
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in the README file in that directory for compiling Tk, installing it,
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and running the test suite.
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4. Getting started
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------------------
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The best way to get started with Tk is by reading one of the introductory
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books.
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The subdirectory library/demos contains a number of pre-canned scripts
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that demonstrate various features of Tk. See the README file in the
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directory for a description of what's available. The file
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library/demos/widget is a script that you can use to invoke many individual
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demonstrations of Tk's facilities, see the code that produced the demos,
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and modify the code to try out alternatives.
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5. Summary of changes in Tk 4.2
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-------------------------------
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Here are the new features in Tk 4.2. The release also includes several
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bug fixes. See the "changes" file for a complete list of all changes.
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1. The grid geometry manager has been completely rewritten:
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- The layout algorithm produces much better layouts than before,
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particularly where rows or columns were stretchable.
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- There is a new -pad option for rows and columns.
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- The command "grid forget" has been renamed "grid remove",
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and "grid forget" now has semantics like "pack forget".
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- The "grid" command no longer accepts floating-point values
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for row or column weights: integers must be used.
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2. There are new commands for creating common dialog boxes:
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tk_chooseColor, tk_getOpenFile, tk_getSaveFile and tk_messageBox.
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These use native dialog boxes if they are available. Examples of
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the dialogs are available in the widget demo.
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3. There is a new virtual event mechanism for handling events in a
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more portable way. See the new command "event". It also allows
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events (both physical and virtual) to be generated dynamically.
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The Macintosh now generates <<Cut>>, <<Copy>>, <<Paste>>, and <<Clear>>
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events from the edit menu.
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The only incompatible changes in this release are the last two for the
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gridder ("grid forget" and integer row/column weights). Most scripts
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that ran under Tk 4.1 should also work under Tk 4.2 with no changes.
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6. Tcl/Tk newsgroup
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-------------------
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There is a network news group "comp.lang.tcl" intended for the exchange
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of information about Tcl, Tk, and related applications. Feel free to use
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this newsgroup both for general information questions and for bug reports.
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We read the newsgroup and will attempt to fix bugs and problems reported
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to it.
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When using comp.lang.tcl, please be sure that your e-mail return address
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is correctly set in your postings. This allows people to respond directly
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to you, rather than the entire newsgroup, for answers that are not of
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general interest. A bad e-mail return address may prevent you from
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getting answers to your questions. You may have to reconfigure your news
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reading software to ensure that it is supplying valid e-mail addresses.
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7. Tcl/Tk contributed archive
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--------------------------
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Many people have created exciting packages and applications based on Tcl
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and/or Tk and made them freely available to the Tcl community. An archive
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of these contributions is kept on the machine ftp.neosoft.com. You
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can access the archive using anonymous FTP; the Tcl contributed archive is
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in the directory "/pub/tcl". The archive also contains several FAQ
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("frequently asked questions") documents that provide solutions to problems
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that are commonly encountered by TCL newcomers.
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8. Support and bug fixes
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------------------------
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We're very interested in receiving bug reports and suggestions for
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improvements. We prefer that you send this information to the
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comp.lang.tcl newsgroup rather than to any of us at Sun. We'll see
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anything on comp.lang.tcl, and in addition someone else who reads
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comp.lang.tcl may be able to offer a solution. The normal turn-around
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time for bugs is 3-6 weeks. Enhancements may take longer and may not
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happen at all unless there is widespread support for them (we're
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trying to slow the rate at which Tk turns into a kitchen sink). It's
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very difficult to make incompatible changes to Tcl at this point, due
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to the size of the installed base.
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When reporting bugs, please provide a short wish script that we can
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use to reproduce the bug. Make sure that the script runs with a
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bare-bones wish and doesn't depend on any extensions or other
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programs, particularly those that exist only at your site. Also,
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please include three additional pieces of information with the
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script:
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(a) how do we use the script to make the problem happen (e.g.
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what things do we click on, in what order)?
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(b) what happens when you do these things (presumably this is
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undesirable)?
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(c) what did you expect to happen instead?
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The Tcl/Tk community is too large for us to provide much individual
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support for users. If you need help we suggest that you post questions
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to comp.lang.tcl. We read the newsgroup and will attempt to answer
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esoteric questions for which no-one else is likely to know the answer.
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In addition, Tcl/Tk support and training are available commercially from
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NeoSoft (info@neosoft.com), Computerized Processes Unlimited
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(gwl@cpu.com), and Data Kinetics (education@dkl.com).
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9. Release organization
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------------------------
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Each Tk release is identified by two numbers separated by a dot, e.g.
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3.2 or 3.3. If a new release contains changes that are likely to break
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existing C code or Tcl scripts then the major release number increments
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and the minor number resets to zero: 3.0, 4.0, etc. If a new release
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contains only bug fixes and compatible changes, then the minor number
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increments without changing the major number, e.g. 3.1, 3.2, etc. If
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you have C code or Tcl scripts that work with release X.Y, then they
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should also work with any release X.Z as long as Z > Y.
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Alpha and beta releases have an additional suffix of the form a2 or b1.
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For example, Tk 3.3b1 is the first beta release of Tk version 3.3,
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Tk 3.3b2 is the second beta release, and so on. A beta release is an
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initial version of a new release, used to fix bugs and bad features
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before declaring the release stable. An alpha release is like a beta
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release, except it's likely to need even more work before it's "ready
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for prime time". New releases are normally preceded by one or more
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alpha and beta releases. We hope that lots of people will try out
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the alpha and beta releases and report problems. We'll make new alpha/
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beta releases to fix the problems, until eventually there is a beta
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release that appears to be stable. Once this occurs we'll make the
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final release.
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We can't promise to maintain compatibility among alpha and beta releases.
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For example, release 4.1b2 may not be backward compatible with 4.1b1, even
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though the final 4.1 release will be backward compatible with 4.0. This
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allows us to change new features as we find problems during beta testing.
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We'll try to minimize incompatibilities between beta releases, but if a
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major problem turns up then we'll fix it even if it introduces an
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incompatibility. Once the official release is made then there won't
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be any more incompatibilities until the next release with a new major
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version number.
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Patch releases have a suffix such as p1 or p2. These releases contain
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bug fixes only. A patch release (e.g Tk 4.1p2) should be completely
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compatible with the base release from which it is derived (e.g. Tk
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4.1), and you should normally use the highest available patch release.
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