[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: [MACTCL] Re: Building tcl/tk 8.4 aqua

[Jack Jansen]

As Russell reposted this bit on the PythonMac-SIG I'm cc'ing that list 
too.

On woensdag, nov 13, 2002, at 19:23 Europe/Amsterdam, Jim Ingham wrote:
> The more likely solution to this problem, at least for us, stems from 
> the fact that it is really a bug that when the CPS goes to figure out 
> whether a binary it has been handed is a GUI App or not, it doesn't 
> notice that the app it has been given is actually a link, and resolve 
> the link before looking around to see if it is in an App package.  If 
> they did this, then the link would point back to the real wish which 
> actually IS in an app package, it would get registered as a GUI app, 
> and everything would be fine...

This would be very bad news for the Python crowd, as we plan on using a 
symlink for exact the opposite purpose. We have a Python.app bundle 
where the executable is merely a symlink to /usr/bin/python. Users use 
a shell script pythonw (in stead of python) to run scripts that need 
the window manager, and the pythonw script is basically
#!/bin/sh
exec /...../Python.app/Contents/MacOS/python $@

This gives python an argv[0] that points into a .app bundle and 
everything is hunky-dory.

I've stayed away from CPSEnableForegroundOperation also because it 
isn't documented, and I don't want Python to stop working because Apple 
takes away an undocumented interface at some release, but the 
functionality would be very welcome. The PyObjC crowd are also running 
into this.

How many scripting languages would you need behind you to make a 
successful appeal to the systems folks to open up this interface? I 
haven't checked, but I would assume that the Perl or Ruby people could 
be having the same problem. After all we all have a single interpreter 
that is sometimes used from command-line scripting, sometimes for GUI 
programming.
--
- Jack Jansen        <Jack.Jansen@oratrix.com>        
http://www.cwi.nl/~jack -
- If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman -