05/01/2007

QOTW:
Ha, I had a good laugh at this ... while technically true, using it to
emulate an existing fairly sophisticated behavior is not exactly a quick
stroll in the park.
It's like saying Tk is powerful and can do anything
- we give you a 1 AND a 0! Mark Roseman on c.l.t
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/msg/b66fda98efc6d65a
Thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/7a87858d8379ce0d

"Tk_Uid is one of JO's less good inventions, alas." - Donal K. Fellows

POTW:
ANNOUNCE: Windows Inspection Tool Set 2.0.5 released
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/e0bccdd6e25a4216
AWiTS provides you with cross-linked, filtered views of a
Windows system. These views include customizable list
views with filtering and sorting capabilities, and
detailed property page views for individual objects. Where
applicable, views are linked to allow for easy navigation
between related objects.
WiTS also includes a configurable event monitor that can notify
you of various events like new network connections, process
starts and exits, service state changes, system resource
exhaustion and more.
Changes:
http://wits.magicsplat.com/versionhistory.html
Homepage, downloads:
http://wits.magicsplat.com/

ANNOUNCE: Tcl/Tk 8.5a6 release

The Tcl Core Team is pleased to announce the 8.5a6 releases of the Tcl
dynamic language and the Tk toolkit. This is the sixth alpha release of
Tcl/Tk 8.5. More details can be found below. We would like to express
our gratitude to all those who submit bug reports and patches. This
information is invaluable in enabling us to identify and eliminate
problems in the core.
This is an alpha release of 8.5. The alpha moniker means that it is in
feature addition mode. All relevant bug fixes (and some more) up to and
including 8.4.14 changes are included in 8.5a6. The following list
focuses on new features added so far in 8.5. This release is a
development release, and should only be considered for deployment use
after considerable testing.
* Ensure the Tcl call stack always has a CallFrame, even at level 0.
*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY for users of tclInt.h ***
* Tcl_PushCallFrame and [info level] enhanced for ensemble rewrites.
*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY for [info level 0] on interp alias ***
* Replace {expand} with {*}
*** POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY with previous 8.5 alphas only ***
* [TIP 274] Expression operator is right associative
* [TIP 272] Added [lreverse] and [string reverse] commands
* [TIP 261] [namespace import] returns list of imported commands
* [TIP 270] New C routines Tcl_ObjPrintf, Tcl_AppendObjToErrorInfo,
Tcl_Format, Tcl_AppendLimitedToObj, Tcl_AppendFormatToObj,
Tcl_AppendPrintfToObj
* [TIP 269] Added [string is list] classification command
* [TIP 174] Added commands corresponding to most expr operators in
::tcl::mathop
* [TIP 280] Added [info frame] command for more Tcl-level debugging
information
* [TIP 298] Change Tcl_GetBignumAndClearObj to Tcl_TakeBignumFromObj
* [TIP 287] Added [chan pending] subcommand
* [TIP 299] Added isqrt() expr operator
* [TIP 267] Added -ignorestderr option to exec
* [TIP 291] Added ::tcl_platform(pointerSize) key
* Fix 64-bit handling of select() on unix where fd was greater than 32
* Moved TCL_REG_BOSONLY from tcl.h to tclInt.h
* Use SHLIB_SUFFIX=".so" on HP-UX IA64 (was ".sl")
* Handle Windows NT \\?\... extended paths where possible
* Improved Windows time zone tables to handle new US DST rules
* Improved Y2038 compliance of zoneinfo files
* Added bytecode compilation for global, variable, upvar and
namespace upvar
* [TIP 48] Addition of themed tk widgets to Tk as Ttk (themed Tk).
Adds ttk::notebook, ttk::sizegrip, ttk::combobox, ttk::panedwindow,
ttk::progressbar, ttk::menubutton, ttk::button, ttk::radiobutton,
ttk::checkbutton, ttk::treeview, ttk::separator, ttk::scrollbar,
ttk::entry, ttk::frame and ttk::labelframe widgets.
Adds ttk::style command for theme control.
* [TIP 300] Added [font actual $font $char]
* [TIP 286] Added [$menu xposition] subcommand
* Allow empty value for -selectforeground option
* Aqua: Improve OS X Carbon event handling
* Aqua: remove Tk-internal double buffering that is wasteful on Aqua
* Aqua: add all OS theme colors/brushes (patterns) as system colors
* Aqua: use OS theme for tk_dialog and bgerror
* Aqua: add 'none' cursor & missing theme cursors
* Aqua: [tk_getOpenFile -parent] uses sheet dialog
* Aqua: fix <> support
* Aqua: improve event processing during nested event loops
* Aqua: add wm attributes -topmost, -fullscreen and -transparent
* Aqua: correct composite attribute handling in
[tk::unsupported::MacWindowStyle] and add new attributes;
allow changing window class of already existing windows.
* Aqua: add tcl document extensions and mime type to Wish.app's
Info.plist
* Windows: Fix unicode character underline in menus
* Windows: Add -transparentcolor wm attribute
* X11: enable --enable-xft by default when available
* X11: Improved EWMH support for _NET_WM_PID and _NET_WM_PING
Downloads:
http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/8.5.html

ORBI: or what happened on comp.lang.tcl
Is there a utility/library proc which print process tree
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/51772e2f54e26bfe

c-extension question
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/33423011f498da70

Newby question about colons
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/86304fc655a38391
The what and why of namespaces

Command history by cursor key in Linux tclsh
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/ead220b6f7e80f57

how to suppress set command output ??
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/e35971fa197161e2

regexp matching and fill more than one variable
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/9b1963c865548710

tk_getOpenFile segmentation fault with PDFs
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/1d53eafa76aa3fe6

TIPX: new, used and discarded Tips
nothing new here, walk on.

OOTW: Orphan of the week or questions nobody answered yet:
tcl_platform weirdness on Win Vista
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/f31f0e3ec6d0b9b4

ATTC: At the Core:
[TCLCORE] ANNOUNCE: Tcl/Tk 8.5a6 release
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=46313364.1040406%40activestate.com&forum_name=tcl-core

JOBS: tcl related job offerings.
We (ImpactWeather?ed) are seeking a qualified candidate for the position
of Software Developer at our Houston, TX headquarters.
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_frm/thread/cdb2a39bfa01caf4

It's great to have the Wiki, and Arjen Markus' report on it, back:
The Wiki is up and running - not quite 100% but for the moment,
let us be grateful that it is back! Your chronicler knows a
lot of effort went into making the system more secure without
sacrificing ease of use.

About the Wiki
- If you experience particular problems with the new Wiki,
then these pages may help both you and the developers:
for some background and a
status, for reporting new
problems.

About pictures
- A nice new demo for the Tcl3D package ... look at the
end, your Wiki chronicler can assure you that Paul
Obermeier, the author, has a perfectly normal head ...

- A virtual photo album, including the frame natural
to paper versions, can be found on the French Wiki:

About applications
- Finding out interesting details about a computer system
usually requires knowing a lot of admin commands ...
For Windows, however, you can use WiTS:

- "Edit and run your code" is the promise of "Scratchpad"
- check it out for yourself:

- Could it be so simple? Wrapping up a "legacy" application?
holds a promise ...

- We all know Java, right? A few of us know Jacl, I suppose.
What about the scripting framework that seems to be in the
make? There is a relation to Tcl there! See the end of:

About other things
- A lively discussion about the Tcl fundamentals: what about
dictionaries as the basis for everything?

- Pareto diagrams are a useful tool in for instance the
quality control world. See for yourself how easy they
are with BLT -

- Looking for examples of using Tk? The French Wiki features
a series of pages on the subject:

Everything Tcl-related you want is probably one or two clicks away in these
pages:
The "Welcome to comp.lang.tcl" message by Andreas Kupries
http://www.purl.org/net/tcl-welcome
comp.lang.tcl is a crucial resource for Tcl practitioners.
An interesting perspective on its traffic appears at
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/about

The Tcl Developer Site is Tcl's "home base".
http://www.tcl.tk

Larry Virden maintains a comp.lang.tcl FAQ launcher.
http://www.purl.org/NET/Tcl-FAQ/

The Tcl Developer Xchange is a highly organized resource center
of documents and software with provisions for individuals to
maintain references to their own software:
http://www.tcl.tk/resource/
The TDX sponsor, ActiveState, also keeps info to convince your
boss Tcl is a good thing
http://www.tcl.tk/scripting/

The Tcl'ers Wiki is a huge, dynamic, collaboratively edited repository
of documentation, examples, tutorials and pontifications on all things
Tcl.
http://wiki.tcl.tk/0
For the ideal overview of the topics about Tcl most likely to
interest a newcomer, see "Arts and Crafts ..."
http://wiki.tcl.tk/969
There's also a high-quality Wikibook on Tcl:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:Tcl

ActiveState maintains binaries distribution and development tools
http://www.activestate.com/Tcl
along with a Cookbook of Tcl recipes
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Tcl

deli.cio.us presents an intriguing approach to reference commentary.
It already aggregates quite a bit of Tcl intelligence.
http://del.icio.us/tag/tcl

Cameron Laird tracks several Tcl/Tk references of interest (but
needs to validate many of the links).
http://phaseit.net/claird/comp.lang.tcl/

Years ago, Cetus Links maintained a Tcl/Tk page with verified links
http://www.cetus-links.org/oo_tcl_tk.html

"Yahoo! Groups" archives comp.lang.tcl.announce posts--even
though clta itself is dormant.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tcl_announce/

We're working on more useful archives of past installments. In the
meantime, an alternative is
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_q=+Tcl-URL&as_ugroup=comp.lang.tcl

Suggestions/corrections for next week's posting are always welcome.

To receive a new issue of this posting in e-mail each Monday, ask
to subscribe. Be sure to mention "Tcl-URL!".
--
Phaseit, Inc. (http://phaseit.net) is pleased to participate in and
sponsor the "Tcl-URL!" project.