Subject: Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links (Jul 3)
From: Uwe Klein
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:51:02 +0000
To: "Tcl-URL distribution" :;
CC:
Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl

QOTW:
    Thanks from the OP. I will test, post, and _amaze_ them. The rest is
    implementation details.  ~Lan on comp.lang.tcl
	  http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/msg/ca13627e507017a1

    Nobody has good locking on networked filesystems of any kind ... 
    Donal K. Fellows


POTW:
     ANNOUNCE: Multi-column listbox package Tablelist 4.7 by Csaba Nemethi
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/88c81d4443ff7798
    Tablelist is a library package for Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or higher,
    written in pure Tcl/Tk code.  It contains:
       - the implementation of the "tablelist" mega-widget, including a
	 general utility module for mega-widgets;
       - a demo script containing a useful procedure that displays the
	 configuration options of an arbitrary widget in a tablelist and
	 enables you to edit their values interactively;
       - a second demo script, implementing a simple widget browser based on
	 a tablelist;
       - a third demo script, showing several ways to improve the appearance
	 of a tablelist widget;
       - four further demo scripts, illustrating the interactive cell
	 editing with the aid of various widgets from the Tk core and from
	 the packages tile, BWidget, Iwidgets, combobox (by Bryan Oakley),
	 and Mentry;
       - one further demo script, with a tablelist widget containing
	 embedded windows;
       - tile-based counterparts of the above-mentioned demo scripts;
       - a tutorial in HTML format;
       - reference pages in HTML format. 
    What is new in Tablelist 4.7?
    1.  Significant performance improvements related to the "insert",
	 "rowconfigure", "sort", "sortbycolumn", and "sortbycolumnlist"
	 subcommands (thanks to Harold Campbell for his valuable
	 contribution to speeding up the item insertion).  The extent of the
	 speed-up depends on the configuration options present at column,
	 row, and cell levels.
    2.  Support for cell- and column label-specific balloon help, with the
	 aid of the new configuration options "-tooltipaddcommand" and
	 "-tooltipdelcommand".
    3.  New subcommands "iselemsnipped" and "istitlesnipped", which make it
	 very easy to display the full cell texts and column titles as
	 tooltips for cells and header labels with snipped contents.
    4.  New subcommands "configcolumnlist", "configcolumns",
	 "configrowlist", "configrows", "configcelllist", and "configcells",
	 which allow you to configure several columns/rows/cells with a
	 single command invocation (thanks to Harold Campbell, Jeff Godfrey,
	 and Paul Obermeier for their proposals).
    5.  Worked around some performance problems regarding the "switch"
	 command in Tcl 8.5a6/8.5b1 and ActiveTcl 8.4.14.
    6.  Made sure that ActiveState's "style::as" package won't break the
	 mousewheel bindings (thanks to Michael Schlenker for drawing my
	 attention to this problem).
    7.  Improved the focus handling when resizing a column interactively
	 (thanks to Jorge Enderr for his bug report).
    8.  Corrected a typo in the adaptation of vertical scrolling to the
	 text widget changes made in Tk 8.5 (thanks to Julian M Noble for
	 his posting on the Wiki related to this subject).
    9.  Fixed a bug related to hidden rows when having "-selecttype cell",
	 introduced in Tablelist version 4.3 (thanks to Harold Campbell for
	 his bug report and discussions on this subject).
    10. Fixed a bug in the "cellconfigure" subcommand, introduced in the
	 previous Tablelist release (thanks to Roy Terry for reporting this
	 problem on the Wiki).
    11. Fixed a bug in the "-changesnipside" option (thanks to Kai Morich
	 for his bug report).
    12. Numerous further improvements in the code and documentation.
    Homepage, Downloads:
	http://www.nemethi.de
	http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcllib
    

MEET:
     Tcl 2007 reminder: July 1 deadline!!!!
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/0ca0e38853d1d75c
    A reminder to all those people planning to attend
    Tcl 2007 with wonderful papers to contribute.  The deadline
    for accepting abstracts and proposals is
    Monday July 2, 2007 (well really July 1, but I'm not
    going to start pawing through my email on that until Monday
    so you all get a day of grace).
    Call for papers and more details:
	http://wiki.tcl.tk/17723
    Conference Details:
	http://www.tcl.tk/community/tcl2007/

    EVT '07 Workshop Registration Now Available
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/3b5f950c4b7751fa
    2007 USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT '07)
    August 6, 2007 Boston, MA
    Sponsored by USENIX, The Advanced Computing Systems Association, and
    ACCURATE, A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable, and Transparent Elections
    Register online by Friday, July 27, 2007 
	http://www.usenix.org/evt07/proga
    EVT seeks to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines,
    ranging from computer science and human factors experts through
    political scientists, legal experts, election administrators, and voting
    equipment vendors. The workshop format will emphasize questions and
    answers for the papers as well as discussion among the participants.
    The paper presentations cover a broad range of topics including
    auditing and transparency, analysis, and design.
    The full program can be found at
	http://www.usenix.org/events/evt07/tech/


ORBI: or what happened on comp.lang.tcl
    Launching Tkcon with a main script and another as arguments
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/86b416ca4a9e5f68

    How to implement pointer operation
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/d72cbee49c593c14

    TclApp | DLL | CGI - permissions?
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/caeb76a038900b27
    
    A widget for the user's editor of choice
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/89aac6f2808bf2c4
    and details of reparenting windows

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

OOTW: Orphan of the week or questions nobody answered yet:
     Perplexing Behavior from Metakit
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/c88e39e5d9442cd0

     Tile Treeview style/look questions
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/d561b58edde58fa5

     Different behaviour between spawn and exec
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/b35ae5da1bf37de2


Thanks to Arjen Markus for his weekly reports on the Wikis:
  From the myriad of pages appearing in the Recent Changes overview
  your chronicler has picked a mere handful. So: read the summary
  and do not forget to explore page 4 yourself!
  
  A few pictures
  - HTML can be put to surprising uses ... What about a picture
    that just looks like a table (or encoded in JavaScript)
    - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/9632>
  
  - Without looking out of the window you can still get a 
    good view of the weather: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/19663>
  
  - Time is money is ... a specialised widget - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/2318>
    exhibits a simple yet beautiful one.
  
  - Looking for some special event that happened somewhere sometime?
    Try: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/19631> for the photographs.
  
  A few soundbites
  - A basic library to produce sound, also on those tiny computers:
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/19661>
  
  - Sound is nothing but a collection of waves in the air. Or a 
    bit of maths: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/19671>
  
  A few somethings
  - If you want to have the window from another application inside your
    Tcl/Tk program, you need to get it to cooperate - 
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/13059> - but then it works nicely
  
  - CGI - the thing that makes web servers cooperate with other applications
    comes in several flavours. SCGI is one - <http://wiki.tcl.tk/19670>
  
  - Tcl and Maxima (a mathematical application) have already been cooperating 
    for several years now, but the new screenshots are worth a look:
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/4758>
  
  - The NAP extension allows you to work with large amounts of data 
    (when structured in an array). Here is a simple, yet, if you allow
    your chronicler to say so, appealing application -
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/19666>
  

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

    "La Gazette du Técleux" is an important monthly publication.
	http://wfr.tcl.tk/1159

    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.

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