Commercial Tcl/Tk applications on Mac OS X
Kevin Walzer
open-source/freeware to commercial/shareware applications on Mac OS X.
As such, I'm looking to compile a list of commercial Tcl/Tk apps that
are supported on this platform--to get a sense of best Tcl/Tk practices
with GUI on the Mac, and also to see what's available. By necessity,
commercial applications have to place a higher focus on GUI polish than
open-source freeware apps do, which is why I'm interested in seeing
what's out there. I focus on Mac development, so I'm including
cross-platform apps with Mac versions, but not commercial Tcl/Tk apps
that don't support the Mac.
Here's what I've found so far:
* Various apps from ActiveState (http://www.activestate.com)--the
Komodo IDE includes a GUI builder written in Tcl/Tk, while ActivePerl's
package manager is written in Perl/Tk with Tile
* BitRock Installbuilder (http://www.bitrock.com)--cross-platform
software installer
* Mark Roseman's Project Forum/CourseForum
(http://www.projectforum.com)--collaboration/wiki software
* Michael Kirkham's MIB Smithy and MIBViews
(http://www.muonics.com)--SNMP tools
* Similustics' Simile (http://www.simulistics.com)--decision-modeling tools
* Alpha Tk by Vince Darley
(http://www.santafe.edu/~vince/Alphatk.html)--powerful text editor
written in pure Tcl/Tk
* Ac3d (http://ac3d.org)--3D modeling tools
My own apps could also be added to this list, as they are all now
shareware.
What these apps have in common, apart from being written in Tcl/Tk, is
that they are very well-designed, with highly polished GUI's, and which
make a good effort to be good Mac applications--they respect Mac UI
conventions such as command-keys, getting the "about" menu in the right
place, and other small things. Most of them also use Tile, which
provides Mac-native theming; but even the ones that are pure Tk
applications fit in reasonably well.
Can anyone think of an application that I've omitted? I'd love to put up
a wiki page about this after getting some additional feedback.
Thanks,
Kevin
--
Kevin Walzer
Poetic Code
http://www.kevin-walzer.com
walto...@gmail.com
greatly in getting started in packaging my application on Mac OS X.
Thanks!
One of these days, I've been planning to write down (here or on the
wiki) all of the exact steps I've taken to modify the GUI, package the
code, and distribute it. I'm talking about things like adjusting the
menubar, adding support for Mac+Q, turning comboboxes into menubuttons
(like all the native apps seems to do), adjusting fonts, using some
tile widgets and some not, packaging it, and distributing it in the
recommended Mac fashion. I'd just be repeating what many others have
already written, but it seems like I had to gather info from several
different sources and figure a few things out for myself. A list of
easy to follow steps might help new guys get started a lot quicker.
Here's my program:
friendadder . com
Kevin Walzer
> Hi, Kevin. First off, let me say that one of your tutorials helped me
> greatly in getting started in packaging my application on Mac OS X.
> Thanks!
>
> One of these days, I've been planning to write down (here or on the
> wiki) all of the exact steps I've taken to modify the GUI, package the
> code, and distribute it. I'm talking about things like adjusting the
> menubar, adding support for Mac+Q, turning comboboxes into menubuttons
> (like all the native apps seems to do), adjusting fonts, using some
> tile widgets and some not, packaging it, and distributing it in the
> recommended Mac fashion. I'd just be repeating what many others have
> already written, but it seems like I had to gather info from several
> different sources and figure a few things out for myself. A list of
> easy to follow steps might help new guys get started a lot quicker.
>
> Here's my program:
> friendadder . com
>
Paul,
Looks good! I'd be very interested to see some kind of
write-up/notes/etc. if you can put them together. I like the "about"
boxes of your apps--very Cocoalike. And they are well-designed in general.