State of the art: Tkinter, Tk 8.5, Tix?

[Eric Brunel]

On Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:31:23 +0100, excord80 <excord80 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Does Python work with Tk 8.5? I'm manually installing my own Python
> 2.6.1 (separate from my system's Python 2.5.2), and am about to
> install my own Tcl/Tk 8.5 but am unsure how to make them talk to
> eachother. Should I install Tk first? If I put Tk into my home
> directory (under "~/opt" most likely), is there some configure option
> I need to pass Python to tell it where to find my Tk?

There's some important information missing here: the platform you're on...

Anyway, you should indeed install tcl/tk first. Then, assuming you're on  
Linux, you should edit the file named Setup in the Modules sub-directory  
of your Python installation, find the lines for the _tkinter module and  
edit them to match your installation. Then, you can build and install  
Python and it should work without problem.

As for Python 2.6 / tk 8.5 compatibility, it depends on what you want to  
do. Since tk 8.5 still offers the 'regular' tk widgets, these will work in  
Python 2.6. If you want the new widgets (aka ttk), I'm not sure there are  
official wrappers for them in the distro (there weren't any last time I  
checked). If there aren't, you can find the 'pre-official' ones here:  
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyttk

> Also, I see that Python comes with Tix. Was Tix supposed to be
> something to make up for what was lacking in Tk prior to its 8.5
> release? Is Tix here to stay, or has it been eclipsed by what comes
> with Tk 8.5 OOTB?

I've never worked with Tix myself, but I'd say the widget set offered by  
tk/ttk is now quite complete.

HTH
-- 
python -c "print ''.join([chr(154 - ord(c)) for c in  
'U(17zX(%,5.zmz5(17l8(%,5.Z*(93-965$l7+-'])"