Subject: Tcl-URL! - weekly Tcl news and links (Oct 23)
From: Uwe Klein
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:15:41 +0000
To: "Tcl-URL distribution" :;
CC:
Newsgroups: comp.lang.tcl

QOTW:
    And, while you might think it's always best to use the most powerful
    form of logic you can afford, this turns out not to be true!
    tom.rmadilo on c.l.t and see "Call by Reference" further down
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/msg/630e4e4583cfe41f

    Software development is just a question of choosing the correct wrench
    to pound in the right screw.  Anonymous, as attributed by Steve Landers


POTW:
    TkDesk 2.0
    nothing new here since 2004 but it is tcl and used to be quite nice to use (Ed).
    TkDesk is a graphical file manager for Unix and the X-Window System. 
    It offers a very rich set of file operations and services, and 
    provides the user with an immense amount of configurability. 
    TkDesk's configuration flexibility results from the use of Tcl/Tk 
    as the primary implementation language. Another benefit of 
    using Tcl/Tk is that TkDesk is very portable and runs on 
    virtually any Unix platform.
    The many features of TkDesk include: 
	Arbitrary number of automatically refreshed file browsers and file-list windows
	Configurable file-specific popup-menus
	Drag and drop
	Files and directories may be dropped onto the root window (a.k.a. the desktop)
	Configurable application bar, with several displays (currently date, load, mail, state of dial-up link) and cascaded popup menus for each button
	History of visited directories, opened files, executed commands, and others, which is automatically saved to disk
	Find files through their annotation, name, contents, size, ownership or age
	Trash can for safe "deletion" of files and directories
	Calculation of disk usage for directory hierarchies
	All file operations (find, copy, disk usage, etc.) are carried out in the background
	Traversal of directory hierarchies through recursive cascaded menus
	Bookmarks, create menu entries for often used files/directories
	Built-in multi-buffer editor, providing virtually unlimited undo
	Comprehensive online help
	Powerful on-the-fly configuration, allowing for unlimited extensibility
	As TkDesk is distributed under the terms of the Gnu General Public License, it is free of charge!
    Homepage, Downloads:
	http://tkdesk.sourceforge.net/index.html

ORBI: or what happened on comp.lang.tcl
    Standard Database Interface?
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/7cc20fd588d50483

    Call by Reference
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/0e3149694ccba5a1

    Expectk on SuSe 10.x
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/f8b06409244235a0

    Flash Player extension for Tcl?
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/99b837a98aa108d8

    "backgrounding" a procedure?
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/c347d5e83d91bcea

    Distribution and copyright on ActiveState base-tk-thread-win32-ix86.exe
	http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/a2894314c7d49b77

TIPX: new, used and discarded Tips
    TIP 114 by Don Porter : Eliminate Octal Parsing of Leading Zero Integer Strings
	http://www.tcl.tk/cgi-bin/tct/tip/114.html
    Author has changed ( was Donal K. Fellows
    Title has changed ( was A System for Non-Decimal Numeric Values

ATTC: At the Core:
    [TCLCORE] Build failure on RedHat x86_64
	http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/tcl-core/3573780

    [TCLCORE] RFC: Octal options
	http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/tcl-core/3573204

    [TCLCORE] Bytecodes from other planets
	http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/tcl-core/3573308


Thanks for Arjen Markus for his weekly summary of Wiki action:
  Isn't that one of Tcl/Tk's greatest assets? The fact that it is
  so easy to replace bits that are not quite to your satisfaction? 
  Well, last week's Wiki activities sure show a few such subjects.
  
  GUI elements remodelling
  - Worried about the native look and feel of Tk applications on
    Macs? Here are a few guidelines: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/13734>
  
  - Tables with a particular style, Mac style to be precise,
    made easy with Tablelist: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/20191>
  
  - Why stick to file selection dialogues that are inadequate?
    There is so much out there that you can adapt to your 
    needs! <http://wiki.tcl.tk/15478>
  
  Scalable programming
  - A chat bot does not need to be complicated, in fact a
    single Wiki page of code suffices: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/20205>
  
  - PDF is a vast standard for text and graphics formatting. No
    need though to go all the way ... One can be incremental
    about it: <http://wiki.tcl.tk/20204>
  
  - There is nothing like a good solid measurement to get a 
    feeling for the performance of various implementations and
    algorithms. And it can all be done with a little application.
    <http://wiki.tcl.tk/20175> conceals a little gem.
  
  Endless
  - Will such debates ever be settled? Or is it a matter of taste?
    Your chronicler thinks the comparison itself is the interesting
    item, not any conclusion. <http://wiki.tcl.tk/13413> compares
    Python and Tcl.
  
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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