Tix 4.0 Release Notes

Contents


Tix 4.0 b5

Released on Thu Jul 23 1995

Subject: [Announce] Tix version 4.0b5 is available

   I am pleased to announce the availability of Tix version 4.0b5.

REQUIREMENT

   TK 4.0 + TCL 7.4. Tix 4.0b5 does not work with previous versions of
   TK and TCL. Versions of Tix that work with previous versions of
   TK and TCL can be found in the FTP directories listed below.

WHAT'S NEW

   For those who are familiar to Tix and eager to find out the new
   additions, here it goes:

   (1) New widget: DirTree. To see a demo of this, start the demo in
       Tix4.0b5/demos/widget and click on the "Run Sample Programs" tab;
       then click on "DirTree" in the listbox.

   (2) New documentation for HList and Display Items. Check out
       HList.n and DItem.n if you are wondering how to use the HList
       in multi-column multi-color mode.

   (3) Tix now works with ET (Embedded TK). Go to the et/ directory and
       do ./configure.

   (4) New graphical set-up program for Tix. This gives a graphical
       front-end for src/configure.

   (5) Tons of bugs fixed. Should be more stable than 4.0b4 (esp HList)

   (6) new command "tix resetoptions" for easy switching back to the
       default TK color schemes. Read the manual page tix.n for more
       details.

WHAT IS TIX

   In case you don't know yet, the Tix library is an extension to the
   Tk toolkit that contains over 20 new widgets for Tk. Features
   include:

   (1) A LOT of new widgets:

      ComboBox, Motif style FileSelectBox, MS Windows style
      FileSelectBox, PanedWindow, NoteBook, Hierarchical Listbox,
      Directory List/Tree View, Spin Control widget .... and many
      more. With these new widgets, your Tcl/Tk applications can
      acquire a great professional look and you can interact with your
      users in interesting new ways.

  (2) XPM image support:

      This allows you to display color icons in XPM format. Supports
      transparent background, a feature not found in the standard GIF
      photo image type.

  (3) Compound images:

      A new image type called "compound" allows you to glue together a
      bunch of bitmaps, images and text strings together to form a
      bigger image. Then you can use this image with widgets that
      support the -image option. For example, you can display a text
      string string together with a bitmap, at the same time, inside a
      TK button widget.

  (4) Form geometry manager

      Works similar to the Motif Form widget. You can specify geometry
      constraints using attachment rules.

  (5) Mwm window manager support:

      With the tixMwm command, you can communicate with the Motif
      window manager "mwm"; you can add new items to the Motif system
      menu and change the window manager decorations.

  (6) Display Items and Display Styles

      Display items and display styles make it possible to display
      visual information in many formats. Currently only the HList
      widget supports display items, but this will become the standard
      way of displaying informations in all the Tix widgets in the
      next version (Tix 4.1).


GETTING THE TIX PACKAGE

   You can obtain Tix from my ftp site:

	ftp://ftp.cis.upenn.edu/pub/ioi/Tix4.0b5.tar.gz

   I have also uploaded the file to the official Tcl site, so in a few
   days it will also be available at;

	ftp://ftp.aud.alcatel.com/tcl/extensions/Tix4.0b5.tar.gz
	ftp://ftp.aud.alcatel.com/tcl/extensions/Tix4.0b5.README

   More information about Tix can be found at the Tix Home Page at

	http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~ioi/tix/tix.html

   There is a mailing list for the discussion of the development of
   the Tix library and Tix applications. To subscribe, please send a
   message to

	ioi@graphics.cis.upenn.edu

   I will not be able to answer mails until late August. If you have a
   pressing problem about Tix you may be able to find help from the
   Tix mailing list. Send you questions to:

	tix-info@graphics.cis.upenn.edu


DOCUMENTATION

   All Tix documentation are now in HTML format. After you download
   Tix, please read the file Tix4.0b5/README.html. It contains links
   to all other important documentation in the Tix package, including
   the copyright statement.


IS TIX FREE?

   Tix 4.0 is released under very liberal license terms, similar to
   the Tcl/TK license terms. Please read the file docs/LEGAL.html in
   the distribution for more details.


Enjoy!


Ioi

Tix 4.0 b4

Released on Thu Jul 23 1995


Subject: [Announce] Tix version 4.0b4 is available


   I am pleased to announce the availability of Tix version 4.0b4.


IS THIS A BETA VERSION?

   No, this is NOT a beta version. Although there is a letter "b" in
   the version number, this should be considered as the "final
   release" of Tix 4.0. Tix 4.0 has been pretty stable now and the
   only reason that I leave the letter "b" there is I am going for a
   vacation and I won't be able to support Tix for the next month. As
   soon as I come back in September, I will release the "Final
   Version" by simply removing the letter "b" from the version number.


REQUIREMENT

   TK 4.0 + TCL 7.4. Tix 4.0b4 does not work with previous versions of
   TK and TCL. Versions of Tix that work with previous versions of
   TK and TCL can be found in the FTP directories listed below.


WHAT IS TIX

   In case you don't know yet, the Tix library is an extension to the
   Tk toolkit that contains over 20 new widgets for Tk. Features
   include:

   (1) A LOT of new widgets:

      ComboBox, Motif style FileSelectBox, MS Windows style
      FileSelectBox, PanedWindow, NoteBook, Hierarchical Listbox,
      Directory List/Tree View, Spin Control widget .... and many
      more. With these new widgets, your Tcl/Tk applications can
      acquire a great professional look and you can interact with your
      users in interesting new ways.

  (2) XPM image support:

      This allows you to display color icons in XPM format. Supports
      transparent background, a feature not found in the standard GIF
      photo image type.

  (3) Compound images:

      A new image type called "compound" allows you to glue together a
      bunch of bitmaps, images and text strings together to form a
      bigger image. Then you can use this image with widgets that
      support the -image option. For example, you can display a text
      string string together with a bitmap, at the same time, inside a
      TK button widget.

  (4) Form geometry manager

      Works similar to the Motif Form widget. You can specify geometry
      constraints using attachment rules.

  (5) Mwm window manager support:

      With the tixMwm command, you can communicate with the Motif
      window manager "mwm"; you can add new items to the Motif system
      menu and change the window manager decorations.

  (6) Display Items and Display Styles

      Display items and display styles make it possible to display
      visual information in many formats. Currently only the HList
      widget supports display items, but this will become the standard
      way of displaying informations in all the Tix widgets in the
      next version (Tix 4.1).


GETTING THE TIX PACKAGE

   You can obtain Tix from my ftp site:

	ftp://ftp.cis.upenn.edu/pub/ioi/Tix4.0b4.tar.gz

   Linux, SGI and SunOS binaries libraries can be found 

	ftp://ftp.cis.upenn.edu/pub/ioi/bin/linux-1.2.3-tix4.0b4/
	ftp://ftp.cis.upenn.edu/pub/ioi/bin/sgi-irix5.3-tix4.0b4/
	ftp://ftp.cis.upenn.edu/pub/ioi/bin/sunos-4.1.3-tix4.0b4/

   I have also uploaded the file to the official Tcl site, so in a few
   days it will also be available at;

	ftp://ftp.aud.alcatel.com/tcl/extensions/Tix4.0b4.tar.gz
	ftp://ftp.aud.alcatel.com/tcl/extensions/Tix4.0b4.README

   More information about Tix can be found at the Tix Home Page at

	http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~ioi/tix/tix.html

   There is a mailing list for the discussion of the development of
   the Tix library and Tix applications. To subscribe, please send a
   message to

	ioi@graphics.cis.upenn.edu

   I will not be able to answer mails until late August. If you have a
   pressing problem about Tix you may be able to find help from the
   Tix mailing list. Send you questions to:

	tix-info@graphics.cis.upenn.edu


DOCUMENTATION

   All Tix documentation are now in HTML format. After you download
   Tix, please read the file Tix4.0b4/README.html. It contains links
   to all other important documentation in the Tix package, including
   the copyright statement.


WHAT'S NEW 

   (1) There are man pages for all "supported" widgets.

   (2) For each "supported" widget, there is a sample program that
       demonstrates how to program with that widget. To see these
       programs, start the demo in Tix4.0b4/demos/widget and click on
       the "Run Sample Programs" tab.

   (3) New image type "compound": you can use it with every Tk/Tix
       widget that support the -image option.

   (4) Better support for keyboard traversal. Now FileSelectBox,
       ExFileSelectBox and NoteBook all support traversal with Tab and
       arrow keys.

   (5) Fewer patches to the standard Tk distribution. Now only two
       files are patched. Even these patches can be turned off by
       *not* supplying the --enable-patches flag when you run the
       ./configure script. Please read the file docs/Install.html in
       the distribution for more information.


IS TIX FREE?

   Tix 4.0 is released under very liberal license terms, similar to
   the Tcl/TK license terms. Please read the file docs/LEGAL.html in
   the distribution for more details.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

   I have to thank everyone who sent me bug reports and kept bugging
   me until I got rid all of the major bugs. Without the supports of
   the beta testers I would have never put together such a (IMHO)
   useful package. Special thanks are due to Sven Delmas, John
   Granieri, Bryan Oakley, Jeff Payne, Michael Carter, Richard Ball,
   Patrick D'Cruze, Mark Roseman and especially to John Ousterhout,
   who wrote the most cool programs I ever saw in my life.


Enjoy!


Ioi

Tix 4.0 b3

Released on Thu Jul 20 02:32:38 EDT 1995

This release works with Tk 4.0 + TCL 7.4


Tix 4.0 b2

Released on Wed Jul 5 10:04:40 EDT 1995

This release works with Tk 4.0 + TCL 7.4


Tix 4.0 b1

Released on Tue Jun 27 22:02:31 EDT 1995


Tix 4.0 a7

Released on Sun May 21 16:16:21 EDT 1995

This is a snapshot of the Tix package as of May 21 1995. New Stuffs:


Tix 4.0 a6

Released on Thu May 4 13:03:49 EDT 1995

This is the 6th alpha release of Tix 4.0. Hopefully this will be the last alpha release.

The reason I release A6 is because I can't finish 4.0b1 as planned in this week. This release should be considered as a sneak preview of 4.0b1.

New Stuffs:

Check it out and please keep your bug reports flowing. Enjoy.

Ioi.


Tix 4.0 a5

Released on Sun Apr 9 23:05:40 EDT 1995

This is the 5th alpha release of Tix 4.0. 

- There is a mailing list for Tix. If you are interested in joining,
  please send a mail to ioi@graphics.cis.upenn.edu.

Changes:

(1) "tixMwm mwmrunning" changed to "tixMwm ismwmrunning".
    There was a typo in the 4.0a4 man page Mwm.n.

(2) SGI GL widget support is finally getting close. Now you can make
    "tgsh" inside the src/ directory. Read the file README.SGI for
    more info.

04/08/95

	- Added the global variables tix_version and tix_patchlevel.
	- all "setsilent" methods are replaced by the command
	  tixSetChooser

04/09/95

	Finally works for Tk 4.0b3


**********************************************************************

                             Tix 4.0 a4

**********************************************************************

- ==> Now Tix supports the GNU "configure" tool <==

- The C interface is cleaned up. You can call Tix_Init() in your
  Tcl_AppInit() function.

- New widgets (not fully functional yet)
	tixHList:		hierarchical list
	tixDirList		directory list
	tixDirTree		collapse-able directory tree view
	tixExFileSelectBox 	MS Windows style file dialog

  The demos are in
	test/dirlist.tcl
	test/dirtree.tcl

  A partially finished man page for tixHList can be found in man/

- Fixed tixFileSelectBox. Now it will filter files the first time it
  is exposed.

- All "box" commands are changed to "Box". You shouldn't have problems
  with this because I have provided backward compatibility functions.

- More man pages. These widgets are now fully documented (I think)

	Balloon.n
	ComboBox.n
	Select.n
	Control.n
	PanedWin.n
	Makefile
	NoteBook.n
	FileBox.n


**********************************************************************

                             Tix 4.0 a3

**********************************************************************


This is the third alpha release of Tix 4.0. 


- Most of the known bugs are fixed.

- Documentation is coming out. Check out the newer files in the man/
  directory

- New tixMwm command to interact with the Mwm manager (the protocol
  command not fully implemented yet.) For more info, check out
  man/Mwm.n

- the -beta option is now opsolete. All Tix widgets are put in the
  library/ directory (but the fact that a widget is there doesn't mean
  it it fully implemented.)

- Two new sub-commands added to the TK "wm" command.

  "wm release"  -- makes ANY Tk widget into a toplevel
  "wm capture"  -- captures a Toplevel widget into its parent toplevel
		   widget.

  Check out the man page man/Wm.n for more details.

- The tixForm geometry manager is quite functional now. There is still
  no docs about tixForm, though.


**********************************************************************

                             Tix 4.0 a2

**********************************************************************

No release notes


	
**********************************************************************

                             Tix 4.0 a1

**********************************************************************

		    Tix 4.0a1 ALPHA Release:
----------------------------------------------------------------------

	This is the first release of Tix 4.0. Not everything is
	working. There is very little documentation except the best
	kind of documentation -- the source code itself :)

	This alpha release is intended for TK developers only. Please
	don't use it in critical applications whose failures will
	cost your jobs. 

>>>>>>	Please read the file README.LEGAL first. Also, read the
	"frequently asked question" section at the end of this
	document. It also covers some legal issues of this version of
	Tix.

Requirement
-----------
	(1) TCL 7.4 and TK 4.0

	Inaddition, if you want the SGI GL widgets you also need

	(1) the glxwin-1.3.1 from MIT. I have included it inside 

	** You don't need [incr tcl] because Tix is based on its own
	OOP framework.

Installation
------------

   (1)	With Tix 4.0, you need to compile a C library. Go into src and
	edit the Makefile to suit your configuration. If you want to
	use the Silicon Graphics GL, edit the file Makefile.sgi

	After that, you can type "make", which will give you libtix.a and
	tixwish.

	Notice that if you use Makefile.sgi, it will generate files of
	the same name. Therefore, if you want to have an SGI version
	together with a non-SGI version, then you have to rename the
	GL capabale tixwish to something else.

   (2)	After you finish with the binary, you can install the TCL script
	library of Tix. You can copy the whole subdirectory
	Tix4.0a1/library to /usr/local/lib/tcl. If you put the library
	somewhere else, you have to set the environment variable
	TIX_LIBRARY to point to that directory.

   (3)  Now you can start to play with the demos. Make sure these
	environment variables are set up correctly:

		TCL_LIBRARY	--> TCL 7.4 library
		TK_LIBRARY	--> TK  4.0 library
		TIX_LIBRARY	--> TIX 4.0 libraryary

	Change directory to Tix4.0a1/demos and type

		$ tixwish -f widget

	If it doesn't work, take a step backward. Change directory to
	Tix4.0a1/test and try each of them. At least some should work.

GL Widgets
----------

	Demos are in Tix4.0a1/test

		colorblk.tcl
		colored.tcl	<<
		colorspc.tcl
		matedit.tcl	<<
		matspher.tcl

	They are not working properly yet, especially the material
	editor.


tixwish options
---------------

	Unlike TK 4.0, tixwish still requires the -f option. Therefore:

		$ tixwish -f somefoo.tcl

	Other options:			Allowed values
	----------------------------------------------
		-fontset		14Point, 12Point, TK
		-scheme			SGIGray, Gray, Blue, TK
		-tixlibrary		dir of the TIX script library 

API Changes
-----------

    (1) The call tixInit is not need anymore. Now the toolkit options
	can be specified in the command line or specified in the X
	resource database, e.g.

		*myapp*fontSet: 14Point
		*myapp*scheme: TK

    (2) If the scheme OR fontset is set to "TK", then Tix won't touch
	the default options of the TK widgets. This is because I
	received many complaints about Tix messing up their existing
	options.

    (3) Almost all widgets have at least some changes in their options
	and methods. I know this is painful. However, this is
	necessary because the previous versions of Tix were by and
	large experimental and they had a lot of stupid designs. The
	old interface was awful, irregular and not expressive enough.

	The most major change is the subwidget access mechanism. Now
	you can use the "subwidget" method to access public widgets.
	For example:

		tixScrolledListbox .d -scrollbar auto
		set listbox [.d subwidget listbox]
		$listbox insert end "This is a string"

	Most of the old subwidget options are gone. For example, these
	options are gone from tixCombobox:

		-entrybg
		-listheight

	Instead, you have to use the option database to specify these
	options.

		options add *TixCombobox*entry.background gray

	or, in the script, you can write

		tixCombobox .d -options {
		    entry.background gray
		    listbox.height 10
		}

	There use to be a bunch of subwidget access methods like

		tixCombobox::entry
		tixCombobox::listbox
	
	Now all of them can be replaced by the "subwidget" method

	   old:

		.cbox subwidget listbox insert end "This is a string"

	   new:

		.cbox subwidget listbox insert end "This is a string"

	Nevertheles, these old subwidget access methods are kept for
	backward compatibility.


    (4) The Intrinsics OOP interface is totally changed from 3.6c.
	Hopefully, not many people wrote their Tix widgets. Even if
	you had, the change should be easy: you just have to change
	the widget class declaration code (~40 lines per widget) and
	change the short names form tixFbc to TixFooBarClub. For
	example, it took me about 2 minutes to port the ColorEditor
	from 3.6 to 4.0.


    (5) Misc changes

      - TixFileSelectbox
	The "-filter" options is gone. Now you should use the
	"-pattern" and "-dir" options to specify the matching pattern
	and the directory.

      - There is a -label option for most "chooser" widgets such as
	Combobox, Select, Control, so you don't need to create
	separate labels for them. For good alignment effect, try:

		option add *main*TixCombobox*label.width  8
		option add *main*TixCombobox*label.anchor e

		tixCombobox .main.b1 -label "City:"
		tixCombobox .main.b2 -label "State:"
		tixCombobox .main.b3 -label "Country:"

	This will create three comboboxes with alignment

		   City: ________ V
		  State: ________ V
	        Country: ________ V

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Another announcement message of Tix 4.0a1

 	   Announcing TIX 4.0a1 - A Set Of Compound Widgets

I am pleased to announce the availability of Tix 4.0a1, the first
alpha release of Tix. If you have used Tix 3.6, you will love the new
and enhanced features of Tix 4.0:

 (1) Lots of new, Motif-style widgets including:

	PanedWindow
	NoteBook
	Combobox
	Control (called "SpinBox" in motif)
	File Selection box
	Popup and Option menu
	Balloon help window
	MDI (Multiple Document Interface) window

 (2) New intergated geometry management supports:

  --->>	Motif style Form geometry manager  <<---
      -	Automatic scrollbars for listbox
      -	ScrolledWindow widget that allows you to scroll any type of widget
      -	Geometry management facilities that allow you to develop a
	geometry manager directly in TCL.

 (3) Object Oriented Programming Framework

	Tix is not based on [incr tcl]. It is based on its own OOP
	framework. While [incr tcl] tries to be general, the Tix OOP
	framework is tuned tuned for compound widget programming.
	Therefore, it allows you to rapidly develop new widgets
	without having to go through all the dirty works you have to
	do under [incr tcl], such as renaming widget commands.

	Also, Tix features a well-defined subwidget access mechainsm
	that allows you to easily access subwidgets inside a compound
	widgets without compromising the integrity of the OOP
	interface.

  (4) SGI GL Widgets

	If you are developing for the SGI you are going to like these:
	    - Color Editor
	    - Material Editor
	They are similar to the widgets you can find in the Inventor
	SceneViewer.

You can obtain Tix4.0a1 from my ftp site:

	ftp://linc.cis.upenn.edu/pub/ioi/Tix4.0a1.tar.gz

Some on-line documentation of Tix can be found at. These HTML files
are pretty old. They will be updated shortly. But just in case you
find some discrepancies between the code and the HTML files, always
rely on the source code. That's the what the "a" in Tix4.0a1.tar.gz
means :)

	http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~ioi/tix/tix.html

Please be aware that currently Tix 4.0 is still in ALPHA testing. As
such, the software will contain LOTS of bugs and unstable features.
Also, the programming interface is still transient and will change
according to user feedbacks. Therefore, please advoid using Tix4.0a1
in any production code.

Please try it out and send bug reports, comments, feedbacks to me so
that I know how to improve. Your opinions are important! You can
contact me at

	ioi@graphics.cis.upenn.edu


Enjoy!


Ioi.


Last modified Sep 28 14:08