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Graphical Applications with Tcl and Tk

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Graphical Applications with Tcl and Tk, Second Edition
by Eric Foster-Johnson M&T Books (Wiley), 1997 ISBN 1-55851-569-0

Table of Contents  
Section 1: Writing Applications in Tcl/Tk
Chapter 1 Your First Tcl Programs
  • What is a Tcl Program?
  • Make-a-Wish
  • A First Tcl Program
  • The First Commands in Depth
  • Widget Names
  • Button Options
  • Looking up Information on Tcl and Tk Commands
  • The pack Command
  • Making a Tcl Script from Our Commands
  • Making Your Tcl Scripts Look Like Real Programs
  • Making Your Tcl Scripts Look Like Real Programs on Windows
  • Making Your Tcl Scripts Look Like Real Programs on UNIX
  • What Happens If You Try This from tclsh?
  • Testing Your Tcl Programs
Chapter 2 Tcl Basics
  • Tcl Syntax
  • Tcl Variables
  • Variables and Substitutions
  • Command Substitution
  • Changing Data in Variables
  • Array Variables
  • The array Command
  • Searching through Arrays
  • Emulating Multidimensional Arrays
  • Special Arrays for Environment Variables
  • Special Array to Describe Your Computing Platform
  • Controlling the Flow of the Script
  • Expressions
  • Better to Switch than Fight
  • Trade-Offs With the switch Command
  • More Expressive Comparisons
  • More Example Globs
  • Regular Expressions or Regex Matches
  • The regexp Command
  • Using -regexp in the switch Command
  • The regsub Command
  • Looping Commands
  • The foreach Command
  • The while Command
  • Jumping Out of Things
  • Built-In Procedures in Tcl
  • Writing Your Own Procedures
  • Returning Values From Procedures
  • Global and Local Variables
  • Call by Reference
  • Renaming Procedures
  • Procedures with a Variable Number of Arguments
  • Procedure Families
  • Defining Procedures Within Procedures
  • Math in Tcl
  • Numeric Notation
  • Math Procedures
Chapter 3 Interacting with the User
  • The Tk Toolkit
  • Widgets
  • The Tour de Widgets
  • Where Widgets Appear
  • Pushing Buttons
  • When to Use a button
  • Creating Widgets
  • Common Widget Options
  • Widget Examples
  • Colored Buttons
  • Color Names
  • RGB Colors
  • Fonts
  • The font Command
  • Other Ways To Name Fonts
  • System-Specific Fonts
  • Calling Code From Widgets
  • Text Options
  • Changing Widgets Once Created
  • Displaying Text Messages with Labels
  • Multiline Labels
  • Radio and Check buttons
  • When to Use Radio- and Checkbuttons
  • Working with Radio- and Checkbuttons
  • Radiobuttons
  • Flashing Radiobuttons
  • The Scale Widget
  • When to Use a scale Widget
  • Controlling the Scale
  • Controlling Floating-Point Conversions
  • Executing Tcl Code When the Scale Changes
  • Making Scales Bigger
  • Special Scale Widget Commands
  • RGB Scales
  • How the Widget Packer Works
  • Inserting Widgets into the Layout
  • Filler Up
  • Padding
  • Finding Out about the Packer
  • Placing Widgets
  • The grid Layout Manager
  • When to Use the grid Command for Layout
  • Creating Data-Entry Forms
  • Relative Placement and grid Shortcuts
  • Other grid Options
  • Framing Widgets
  • When to Use a frame Widget
  • Widget Names
  • Destroying widgets
Chapter 4 Menus
  • Creating Menus
  • Menubuttons Display Menus
  • Populating Menus with Menu Choices
  • Cascading Submenus
  • Tear-Off Menus
  • Making Menu Bars
  • Creating Menus and Menu Bars the New Way
  • Creating Menus the New Way
  • Keyboard Shortcuts and Accelerators
  • Binding Events to Call Tcl Scripts
  • Binding Mouse Events
  • Class Bindings
  • Getting at Event Data in the Tcl Script
  • Bindings for Accelerators and Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Standard Menus
  • The File Menu
  • The Edit Menu
  • The View Menu
  • The Options Menu
  • The Help Menu
  • Naming and Arranging Menu Choices
  • The Main Window
  • The Status Area
  • Option Menus
  • When to Use Option Menus
  • Pop-up Menus
Chapter 5 Text Editing with Tcl and Tk
  • Entering Text
  • Creating Entry Widgets
  • When to Use an entry Widget
  • Password Entry
  • Data-Entry Forms
  • Working With the entry Widget
  • The Insertion Cursor
  • Entry Widget Selections
  • Scrolling in the Entry Widget
  • Multiline Text Widgets
  • When To Use a text widget
  • Controlling the Text Widget Display
  • Deleting Text
  • Defining Positions in the Text
  • Inserting Text
  • Retrieving Text
  • Connecting the Text Widget to a Scrollbar
  • Setting the Keyboard Focus
  • Marks, Tags and Embedded Windows
  • Marks
  • Using Tags to Control Fonts
  • Embedded Windows
  • Making Hypertext Links in the Text
  • Cut, Copy, and Paste with the Text Widget
  • The Clipboard
  • The Clipboard and the Selection
  • Getting the Selected Text
  • Putting Text in the Clipboard
  • Clearing Text in the Clipboard
  • Retrieving Data from the Clipboard
  • Copy
  • Cut
  • Paste
  • Binding Events for Cut, Copy, and Paste
  • Text Widget Efficiency
  • Dumping the Contents of a text Widget
  • Searching Within the text Widget
  • Tcl String-Handling Commands
  • Extracting Substring
  • Comparing Strings
  • Searching in Strings
  • Changing Case
  • Trimming Strings
  • A Tcl-Based Text Editor
  • Executing Tcl Scripts within Tcl
  • Creating the Script
  • The Sample Text Editor
Chapter 6 Lists, Files and Directories
  • Lists
  • Building Lists
  • Inserting Elements into a List
  • Appending Elements to a List
  • Pulling Out Elements from a List
  • Breaking Up Lists
  • Searching Through Lists
  • Sorting Lists
  • Special Lists for Accessing the Command Line
  • Listbox Widgets
  • When to Use a listbox Widget
  • Connecting a Listbox to a Scrollbar
  • Listbox Indices
  • List Indices
  • Accessing Listbox Items
  • Finding Out which Items Are Selected
  • Making an Item Visible
  • Listbox Examples
  • A Multicolumn List
  • Accessing Files
  • File Names
  • Built-In File IDs
  • Reading a File Line By Line
  • Seeking Data in Files
  • Channels
  • Reading a File into a Text Widget
  • Saving the Contents of a Text Widget to Disk
  • File Commands
  • Scanning Directories
  • Changing Directories
  • A Tcl Directory Browser
 		Chapter 7 Dialog Windows
  • Dialog Windows
  • Convenience Dialog Windows
  • Message Dialog Windows
  • File Dialog Windows
  • The Color Dialog
  • The tk_dialog Command
  • Building Your Own Dialog Windows
  • Creating Top-Level Application Windows
  • Setting Window Manager Options
  • Positioning Dialog Windows
  • Showing and Hiding Dialog Windows
  • Handling the Close Window Manager Option
  • Modal and Nonmodal Dialog Windows
  • Building Your Own Convenience Dialog Windows
  • Search and Replace Dialog Windows
  • Creating a Font Dialog Window
  • Drop-Down Lists
Chapter 8 Bitmaps, Images and the canvas Widget
  • Images and Bitmaps
    • Image Names
    • Built-In Bitmaps
    • Creating Bitmaps From X Bitmap Files
    • Photo Images
    • Deleting Images
    • Querying Images
  • The Main Window Revisited
  • Creating Toolbars
  • Help on Toolbars
  • The Canvas Widget
    • Creating Drawing Items in the Canvas Widget
    • Scrolling the Canvas Widget
    • Manipulating Canvas Items
    • Binding Events to Canvas Drawing Items
    • Generating PostScript Output
  • Displaying Thumbnail Images
Section 2: Advanced Applications

Chapter 9 Tcl Tricks and Traps: Handling Errors and Debugging

  • Handling Errors
  • Foreground Errors and Background Errors
    • Handling Background Errors with tkerror
    • The Stack Trace
    • Reporting Errors in Your Code
    • Setting Error Data
    • Building a New tkerror Procedure
  • Trapping Errors
    • Catching Errors with Catch
    • Defensive Programming
  • Debugging Tcl Applications
    • Tracing the Execution of Tcl Scripts for Debugging
    • Finding Out More about the State of the Tcl Interpreter
    • Creating a Debugging Log
    • Tcl Debuggers
Chapter 10 Launching Applications from Tcl
  • Executing Commands
  • Tricks of Combining Eval with Exec
  • Launching Commands on Windows
  • Launching Commands on UNIX
  • Standard Input, Output, and Error
  • Redirecting Input and Output in Commands
  • Pipes
  • Getting the Process ID
  • Executing Tcl Scripts From within Tcl
  • Using Tcl as a Customization Language
  • Executing Scripts After a Time-Out
Chapter 11 Hypertext and On-line Help
  • On-line Help
  • Short Help Messages
  • Short Messages in the Status Area
  • Tooltips Help
  • The Help Menu
  • Using HTML for On-line Help
  • Launching Web Browsers to Display Help
  • Using Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Displaying HTML in the text Widget
  • Reading URLs
Chapter 12 Communicating Between Applications: Networking and Beyond
  • Communication Methods
  • Sending Commands to Applications
  • Security Issues with Send
  • Networking Sockets
    • The socket Command
    • Server Sockets
    • Creating a Client and a Server
  • Reading and Writing Data with Channels
    • Controlling Channels
    • Handling Asynchronous Data
  • Sockets with Channel Commands
  • Designing an Example Client
  • Designing an Example Server
  • Other Ways to Communicate
Chapter 13 Tcl and the Web
  • The World Wide Web
  • The Common Gateway Interface
  • Web Forms
  • The cgi.tcl Library
  • Writing Tcl Applets
  • Security Restrictions on Applets
  • Creating Tcl Applets
Chapter 14 Advanced Applications
  • Finishing the Application
  • Creating Well-Behaved Applications
    • Working with the Window Manager
    • Cross-Platform Issues
    • Updating Widgets
    • Supporting other Languages
  • Creating a Distinctive Look for Your Applications
    • Color Schemes
    • Start-up Splash Screens
    • Cursors
  • Easier Ways to Create the Interface
  • Using Application Builders
  • Providing User Customization
    • User Preferences
    • The Option Databases
  • Packaging Your Code
    • Libraries
    • Packages
    • Problems with packages and Libraries
    • Name Spaces
  • Installation and Wizards
    • Installing on Windows
    • Installing on UNIX
    • Installing Tcl
  • Accessing the Windows Registry
  • The Future of Tcl and Tk
  • Where to Go From Here
Section 3: Embedding Tcl in Your C and C++ Applications
Chapter 15 Embedding Tcl in Your Applications
  • Application-Specific Languages
  • Calling Tcl from C
  • When to Code in Tcl and When to Code in C
  • The Simplest Tcl Interpreter
  • Getting the Results
  • The Byte Code Compiler
  • Compiling and Linking Your New Interpreter
  • Compiling and Linking on UNIX
  • Compiling and Linking on Windows
  • Running the Example Interpreter
  • Creating More Complex Applications
  • Adding in Tk into Your Programs
  • Linking with Tk
  • Running the tkapp Program with Tk
  • Installation Issues
  • Pointing to the Proper Tcl/Tk Procedure Libraries
  • Embedded Tk
Chapter 16 Extending Tcl
  • Making New Commands
  • Creating Your New Tcl Commands
  • Creating a Command: The String-Based Approach
  • Creating Commands: The Object-Based Approach
  • Finishing Your Commands
  • Allocating Memory
  • Allocating Text Strings
  • Converting Strings
  • Accessing Tcl Variables in Your Commands
  • Evaluating Arguments
  • Looking Up Objects
  • Linking Variables Between C and Tcl
  • Using Tcl To test C++ Programs
  • The Example C++ Class
  • Creating a Tcl Interface to the C++ Class
  • Testing the C++ Program with Tcl
  • Connecting Tcl to Java Applications
Appendix A For More Information
Appendix B Installing Tcl and Tk

Appendix C the CD-ROM
Some of what is available on the CD-ROM include:

  • Source code for Tcl/Tk
  • Binary version for Windows with install program
  • Examples from the book
  • Scads and scads of Tcl freeware

Index

Errata  
The following typos have been found in the book. Thanks to David Fisher for pointing them out. If you have found any problems, please send me a message. Thanks.

Page 28, Table 2.1
Two words are reversed in the entries on text in quotes and braces. The table should read:

"Text in quotes" Pass the text between the quotes as one argument, performing command and variable substitution.
{Text in braces} Pass the text between the braces as one argument; defer substitution until later.

Page 303, code example
The text widget search commands have a double dash, --, which got munged to a single long dash. Look for: 

                   #Search for text.
                   set indx [$textwidget search -- \
                      $search_for $find_last_indx end]

There are two cases of this on page 303.

Page 721, URL for ET (Embedded Tk)
The URL has moved to http://www.hwaci.com/sw/et/ET.html. Note that ET is no longer being actively developed.

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Copyright © 2008 Eric Foster-Johnson, including all photos. Book covers used with permission.