[Pythonmac-SIG] Recommended Tcl/Tk with Py-2.6.x? (was: Test failure...)

Ronald Oussoren ronaldoussoren at mac.com
Thu Mar 4 12:39:49 CET 2010


On 3 Mar, 2010, at 11:33, Ned Deily wrote:

> In article <1267598651.4b8e053b514be at astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu>,
> Tom Loredo <loredo at astro.cornell.edu> wrote:
>> Sorting out the Tcl/Tk situation with Python-2.6.4 is coming
>> up quickly on my MacPy to-do list (I'm just setting up a new machine,
>> as you may have guessed).  I've experienced the weirdness
>> associated with creating new windows in IDLE (with Apple's
>> Py-2.6.1).  I was not clear on whether this problem is unique
>> to Apple's Python (in Snow Leopard), to their Tcl/Tk, or if it
>> is a genuine Python/Tcl issue in the 2.6 series.
>> 
>> Digging around, I've found a bug report:
>> 
>> http://bugs.python.org/issue6864
>> 
>> I find the report a bit confusing; it gives me the impression that
>> the problem is due to a not-yet-understood (as of Py-2.6.3) interaction
>> between Python and Tk 8.5.  But it sounds like you have a working
>> setup with Py-2.6.4 and Tk 8.5.
>> 
>> Do you have a recommended Tk setup that works?  E.g., does ActiveTcl 8.5
>> solve this issue (with Py-2.6.4)?  My web searching hasn't turned up
>> any clear advice about this.
> 
> Ugh!  As far as I know there has not been much progress on this issue 
> since that bug report was opened; certainly I haven't been thinking 
> about it.  Time to do some retesting.  If anyone has recently, please 
> speak up.
> 
> The main problem before was 64-bit Tk availability.  IIRC, the only real 
> game in town for that was the Apple-supplied 8.5 in 10.6 which 
> apparently pulled in from the TkAqua Cocoa/64-bit port project (which 
> now may be a part of 8.6?).   Kevin Walzer was trying to get that the 
> TkAqua 64-bit stuff to work with Python on 10.5 a while back but he ran 
> into various problems.   Perhaps he can jump in here with an update.  
> I've seen reports that the X11 version of Tk may work in 64-bit (I think 
> the MacPorts version does) but I have no (recent) personal experience 
> with X11 Tk on OS X and, frankly, I'm not looking to get any more.  X11 
> Tk would probably require some build tweaking.
> 
> If you don't mind running any Tk-based stuff in 32-bit mode, either the 
> Apple-supplied Tk 8.4 or ActiveState 8.4 worked fine when we last poked 
> at this.  But one may need to tweak the build of Tkinter in Python to 
> dynamically link with 8.4, rather than 8.5, when building on 10.6, since 
> both versions exist in /System/Library/Frameworks.  Something else to 
> look at.  Ronald has suggested modifying Tkinter and the installer build 
> to allow one Python instance to dynamically link with either 8.4 or 8.5, 
> depending on what is available but I don't think anyone has found time 
> to work on that.  Contributions welcome!
> 
> The easy way to avoid nearly all the hassle, at the moment, is to stick 
> with 32-bit and build Python on 10.5 - not a good long term solution.

The best I might be able to implement before 2.7 goes into beta is a hack
where Tkinter gets linked to Tk 8.4 when the deployment target is 10.5 or
earlier. That would allow building the binary distribution on 10.6 and would
result in a working copy of IDLE.

Supporting Tk 8.5 would be nice, but is not something I can spend time
on at the moment (due to lack of time to do the work).

What's important for me:
* The distribution on python.org must work on OSX 10.4 or later
* IDLE must work on all supported platforms
* Users should not have to install Tcl/Tk, Python should use the system install and optionally use a user install in /Library when that is available


Ronald

> 
> -- 
> Ned Deily,
> nad at acm.org
> 
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