A Tk window

[Albert Schlef]

I have a program that run in the terminal. But once in a while I need it
to bring up a window (GUI) with some information (and interactive
widgets).

So I do:

root = TkRoot.new
.....set up the window.....
Tk.mainloop

This works. Then the user closes the window and the program continues
running.

HOWEVER, the next time I try to bring up the window, Tk gives the
following error:

can't invoke "frame" command: application has been destroyed
(RuntimeError)

(I also tried with TkToplevel instead of TkRoot.)

How can I solve this problem?

I looked into the source code of '/ext/tk/lib/dialog.rb', thinking
perhaps TkDialog is what I need. I tried the following code:

class MyDialog < TkDialog
def initialize(*args)
super(*args)
TkLabel.new(self, :text => 'this is a test').pack
end
end

MyDialog.new :title => 'something'

Now, this is already an improvement because I can call MyDialog.new()
again and again without Tk telling me that the "application has been
destroyed". HOWEVER, I can't put my own widgets in the dialog: my 'this
is a test' label doesn't show up...

 

[Aldric Giacomoni]

I have a program that run in the terminal. But once in a while I need it
to bring up a window (GUI) with some information (and interactive
widgets).

So I do:

root = TkRoot.new
.....set up the window.....
Tk.mainloop

This works. Then the user closes the window and the program continues
running.

HOWEVER, the next time I try to bring up the window, Tk gives the
following error:

can't invoke "frame" command: application has been destroyed
(RuntimeError)

(I also tried with TkToplevel instead of TkRoot.)

How can I solve this problem?

I looked into the source code of '/ext/tk/lib/dialog.rb', thinking
perhaps TkDialog is what I need. I tried the following code:

class MyDialog < TkDialog
def initialize(*args)
super(*args)
TkLabel.new(self, :text => 'this is a test').pack
end
end

MyDialog.new :title => 'something'

Now, this is already an improvement because I can call MyDialog.new()
again and again without Tk telling me that the "application has been
destroyed". HOWEVER, I can't put my own widgets in the dialog: my 'this
is a test' label doesn't show up...

Cheat, override the 'close' button and make it hide the window instead?

 

[Phlip]

Cheat, override the 'close' button and make it hide the window instead?

Then the Tk.mainloop keeps ticking, meaning you have to then slice up your outer
algorithm and put it in a timer, etc. etc.!!

 

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

From: Phlip <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: A Tk window
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 22:54:48 +0900

Tk.root.protocol('WM_DELETE_WINDOW'){Tk.root.withdraw}

Then the Tk.mainloop keeps ticking, meaning you have to then slice up your outer
algorithm and put it in a timer, etc. etc.!!

There is a trick ;-)
-----------------------------------------------------------
require 'tk'

class MyWin
def initialize
@v = TkVariable.new
r = Tk.root
r.protocol('WM_DELETE_WINDOW'){r.withdraw; Tk.update; @v.value = 1}
TkButton.newtext=>'TEST', :command=>proc{puts 'running!'}).pack
end

def start_eventloop
Tk.root.deiconify
@v.wait # wait command makes a eventloop while waiting
end
end

w = MyWin.new
5.times{
w.start_eventloop
p Thread.list
sleep 3
}

 

[list. rb]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Cheat, override the 'close' button and make it hide the window instead?

Then the Tk.mainloop keeps ticking, meaning you have to then slice up your
outer algorithm and put it in a timer, etc. etc.!!

+1 for larger indentations ;-)

 

[Albert Schlef]

Phlip wrote:
[...]

Now here's a blast from the past: [...]
Tk.mainloop()
Tk.restart()

Superb! That solved my problem. Thanks.

(BTW, suppose I'll be running my code inside a Tk application. In that
case I wouldn't want to execute Tk.mainloop() (and restart(), of course)
at all. Any way to find out if we're already running in a Tk
application?)

Notice I was using 4-space indentations [...]

LOL

There is a trick ;-) [...]
@v.wait # wait command makes a eventloop while waiting

Thanks, Nagai, but this is too much voodoo for me I don't bother to
study the "dark" corners of Tk because I have a feeling Tk is a
dead-end. (It has an ingeniously simple API, I admit, but the facts that
I struggled yesterday to fetch the selcted item from a TkListbox, and
even more to add scrollbars, and that the fonts are so ugly and
unreadable, show that Tk has been dormant for at least 15 years.) But it
seems we don't have much choice. GTK requires you to memorize CONSTANTS.
Shoes doesn't have mature widgets. FOX is a pain to compile. So we go
with Tk.

 

[Phlip]

Superb! That solved my problem. Thanks.

Read and obey the post by Hidetoshi NAGAI. He maintains RubyTk, AFAIK!

(BTW, suppose I'll be running my code inside a Tk application. In that
case I wouldn't want to execute Tk.mainloop() (and restart(), of course)
at all. Any way to find out if we're already running in a Tk
application?)

If a GUI is already running, then if you block its main loop, the user will see
the window lock up. So use @v.wait...

GTK requires you to memorize CONSTANTS.
Shoes doesn't have mature widgets. FOX is a pain to compile. So we go
with Tk.

Yay!

 

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

From: Albert Schlef <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: A Tk window
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 22:40:16 +0900

dead-end. (It has an ingeniously simple API, I admit, but the facts that
I struggled yesterday to fetch the selcted item from a TkListbox, and
even more to add scrollbars,

Hmm... I think that it not so difficult.
Possibly, Ruby/Tk is easier than Tcl/Tk.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
require 'tk'

f = TkFrame.new.packexpand=>true, :fill=>:both)

lbox = TkListbox.new(f)
lbox.yscrollbar(TkScrollbar.new(f).packside=>:right, :fill=>:y))
lbox.packside=>:right, :expand=>true, :fill=>:both)
lbox.bind('<ListboxSelect>', :widget){|w|
# :widget equal to "%W" (see Tcl/Tk's "bind" manual).
# current Ruby/Tk supports accessor-names of Tk::Event object instead of
# "%" substitutions.
p [w.curselection, w.get(w.curselection[0])]
}

lbox.value = %w(a b c foo bar baz hoge fuga zzz asdf qwer zxcv)
lbox.focus

Tk.mainloop
-------------------------------------------------------------------

and that the fonts are so ugly and
unreadable, show that Tk has been dormant for at least 15 years.)

Well, I recommend you to use Tcl/Tk8.5 for your Ruby/Tk.
Tcl/Tk8.5 supports anti-aliased fonts on X window systems,
and includes Tile (Ttk) extension (widget styling engine) as default.

 

[Albert Schlef]

Well, I recommend you to use Tcl/Tk8.5 for your Ruby/Tk.
Tcl/Tk8.5 supports anti-aliased fonts on X window systems,

What does this entail? Will I have to compile Tcl/Tk/Ruby myself?

 

[Albert Schlef]

What does this entail? Will I have to compile Tcl/Tk/Ruby myself?

Nevermind, I've found instructions, here:

http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/install.html

(Why do I get the impression that "The Tk Way" equals "Nothing works out
of the box"?)

 

[mdiam]

(Why do I get the impression that "The Tk Way" equals "Nothing works out
of the box"?)

It's not true for Tk but I agree the **Ruby/Tk** is difficult to make
working
only because Tk is not part of Ruby.


-- Maurice

 

[Albert Schlef]

Nevermind, I've found instructions, here:

http://www.tkdocs.com/tutorial/install.html

I gave up, it's too complicated for me. I'll just wait for the next
release of Ubuntu.

It's not true for Tk but I agree the **Ruby/Tk** is difficult to make
working only because Tk is not part of Ruby.

It isn't? Well. Actually, if it was shipped as a gem we could just do
"gem update tk" and it'd work with the newest Tk, wouldn't it?

 

[Phlip]

It's not true for Tk but I agree the **Ruby/Tk** is difficult to make
working
only because Tk is not part of Ruby.

I can't remember the last time I built a ruby.*tar.gz tarball and did not get a
Ruby/Tk...

 

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

From: Albert Schlef <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: A Tk window
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 22:55:04 +0900

I gave up, it's too complicated for me. I'll just wait for the next
release of Ubuntu.

Did you see '<ruby-src-tree>/ext/tk/README.tcltklib' ?
Can't it help you ?

 

[Mark Roseman]

As the author of the www.tkdocs.com site, I'd very much welcome any
feedback as to the installation instructions, and particularly if anyone
knows easier ways to get things running!
Mark

 

[mdiam]

mdiam said:

It isn't? Well. Actually, if it was shipped as a
gem we could just do "gem update tk" and it'd work
with the newest Tk, wouldn't it?

I agree that a "gem upgrade tk" would be nice, but
I'm not sure it's feasable while Tk is not part
of Ruby?
-- Maurice

 

[Albert Schlef]

Did you see '<ruby-src-tree>/ext/tk/README.tcltklib' ?
Can't it help you ?

Thanks! I made it. It was actually simple. My Tk apps look decent now

As the author of the www.tkdocs.com site, I'd very much
welcome any feedback as to the installation instructions

Two things:

1. There's no need to compile the whole Ruby. After I extracted Ruby's
source tarball I went to the 'ext/tk' folder and compiled only the Tk
extension. As Nagai points out, that folder has a README.tcltklib which
lists the command line options one needs to pass to 'ruby extconf.rb'.

2. There's no need to mention ActiveState or ActiveTcl. On my linux
distro (Ubuntu) I just type "sudo apt-get install tcl8.5 tcl8.5-dev
tk8.5 tk8.5-dev" and everything gets installed.

 

[Joel VanderWerf]

From: Albert Schlef <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: A Tk window
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 22:55:04 +0900


Did you see '<ruby-src-tree>/ext/tk/README.tcltklib' ?
Can't it help you ?

I haven't gotten ruby/tk to work with 8.5. It's been ok with 8.4 but
segfaults with 8.5.

This is on ubuntu. I build tcl8.5.6 and tk8.5.6 with

/configure --disable-threads --prefix=/usr/local
make && make install

The tk demos run correctly.

Then I build ruby (1.8.6-p287) with:

/configure --disable-pthread --with-tcl-dir=/usr/local
--with-tk-dir=/usr/local --disable-tcl-thread
make && make install

(I tried just rebuilding ext/tk as described in README.tcltklib, but the
effect was the same.)

Then *some* of the ruby/tk demos run but some segfault. For example:

$ ruby 24hr_clock.rb
*** glibc detected *** ruby: free(): invalid next size (fast):
0x08448d78 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6[0xb7dbca85]
/lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(cfree+0x90)[0xb7dc04f0]
/usr/local/lib/libtcl8.5.so(TclpFree+0x1d)[0xb7a0ee8d]
/usr/local/lib/libtcl8.5.so(Tcl_Free+0x1d)[0xb7a1872d]
/usr/local/lib/libtcl8.5.so[0xb7aa4550]
/usr/local/lib/libtcl8.5.so[0xb7a161ca]
/usr/local/lib/libtcl8.5.so(Tcl_GetByteArrayFromObj+0x3b)[0xb7a1623b]
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i686-linux/tcltklib.so[0xb7bfe1ae]
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i686-linux/tcltklib.so[0xb7bfedf5]
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i686-linux/tcltklib.so[0xb7bff2dd]
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i686-linux/tcltklib.so[0xb7bffb65]
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i686-linux/tcltklib.so[0xb7bffdce]

(and more backtrace and dump data)

Any ideas?

 

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

From: Albert Schlef <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: A Tk window
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 08:48:04 +0900

2. There's no need to mention ActiveState or ActiveTcl. On my linux
distro (Ubuntu) I just type "sudo apt-get install tcl8.5 tcl8.5-dev
tk8.5 tk8.5-dev" and everything gets installed.

Except useful Tcl/Tk extensions.

 

[Hidetoshi NAGAI]

From: Joel VanderWerf <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: A Tk window
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 05:43:28 +0900

I haven't gotten ruby/tk to work with 8.5. It's been ok with 8.4 but
segfaults with 8.5.

This is on ubuntu. I build tcl8.5.6 and tk8.5.6 with

./configure --disable-threads --prefix=/usr/local
make && make install

The tk demos run correctly.

Then I build ruby (1.8.6-p287) with:

./configure --disable-pthread --with-tcl-dir=/usr/local
--with-tk-dir=/usr/local --disable-tcl-thread
make && make install

(I tried just rebuilding ext/tk as described in README.tcltklib, but the
effect was the same.)

Then *some* of the ruby/tk demos run but some segfault. For example:

Probably, your Tcl/Tk libraries are compiled with threads support option.
The following table is the relation of thread support between
Ruby and Tcl/Tk.

| Tcl/Tk with threads | without threads
-------------------+-----------------------+------------------------
Ruby with pthread | work | possibly work
-------------------+-----------------------+------------------------
without pthread | NOT work (freq. SEGV) | work
-------------------+-----------------------+------------------------

"--disable-tcl-thread" option doesn't change thread support status of
Tcl/Tk libraries.