[GRASS-dev] WinGRASS needs TclTk 8.4

[William Kyngesburye]

On Feb 1, 2008, at 5:09 AM, Glynn Clements wrote:

>>>
>>> 	#include "tkMacOSX.h"
>>> 	#include <tkMacOSXInt.h>
>>
>>
>> These are only needed when using the Aqua TclTk.  X11 TclTk on OSX is
>> pure unix (and the one I recommend).
>
> I would recommend getting the native version to build. It shouldn't be
> necessary to have X11 installed to use GRASS.
>
> Apart from anything else, using X11 is adding another dependency and
> thus another source of potential problems.
>

For now, X11 TclTk on OSX is more reliable than Aqua TclTk.  One thing  
we can't do much about is that TclTk Aqua is only partially "Aquafied"  
- some widgets still use the X11 look even though there are nearly  
exact Aqua equivalents.  Having an application look and behave mostly  
native can be disconcerting and confusing to the user.  At least in  
X11 it's all consistent and expected to behave differently.

And there is a spacing/layout issue, since Aqua widgets are larger.   
Button labels get clipped a few pixels, and text can flow out of its  
area.

There is also a runtime issue in NVIZ.  I didn't look into it closely  
since GRASS is moving to the Python GUI, and for the above usability  
reasons.  IIRC, it doesn't display correctly when resizing the  
window.  Or maybe it was that it didn't display anything until the  
window was resized once.


I guess that turned into a bit of a rant.  Keep the tkMacOSX headers -  
it builds and mostly works.  I just recommend X11.

-----
William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos*at*kyngchaos*dot*com>
http://www.kyngchaos.com/

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