289 lines
5.7 KiB
HTML
289 lines
5.7 KiB
HTML
<HTML
|
|
><HEAD
|
|
><TITLE
|
|
>Getting More Information</TITLE
|
|
><META
|
|
NAME="GENERATOR"
|
|
CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK
|
|
REL="HOME"
|
|
TITLE="VB6 To Tcl mini-HOWTO"
|
|
HREF="index.html"><LINK
|
|
REL="PREVIOUS"
|
|
TITLE="Examples"
|
|
HREF="examples.html"><LINK
|
|
REL="NEXT"
|
|
TITLE="Copyright and License"
|
|
HREF="copyright.html"></HEAD
|
|
><BODY
|
|
CLASS="SECT1"
|
|
BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"
|
|
TEXT="#000000"
|
|
LINK="#0000FF"
|
|
VLINK="#840084"
|
|
ALINK="#0000FF"
|
|
><DIV
|
|
CLASS="NAVHEADER"
|
|
><TABLE
|
|
SUMMARY="Header navigation table"
|
|
WIDTH="100%"
|
|
BORDER="0"
|
|
CELLPADDING="0"
|
|
CELLSPACING="0"
|
|
><TR
|
|
><TH
|
|
COLSPAN="3"
|
|
ALIGN="center"
|
|
>VB6 To Tcl mini-HOWTO</TH
|
|
></TR
|
|
><TR
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="10%"
|
|
ALIGN="left"
|
|
VALIGN="bottom"
|
|
><A
|
|
HREF="examples.html"
|
|
ACCESSKEY="P"
|
|
>Prev</A
|
|
></TD
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="80%"
|
|
ALIGN="center"
|
|
VALIGN="bottom"
|
|
></TD
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="10%"
|
|
ALIGN="right"
|
|
VALIGN="bottom"
|
|
><A
|
|
HREF="copyright.html"
|
|
ACCESSKEY="N"
|
|
>Next</A
|
|
></TD
|
|
></TR
|
|
></TABLE
|
|
><HR
|
|
ALIGN="LEFT"
|
|
WIDTH="100%"></DIV
|
|
><DIV
|
|
CLASS="SECT1"
|
|
><H1
|
|
CLASS="SECT1"
|
|
><A
|
|
NAME="MORE"
|
|
></A
|
|
>3. Getting More Information</H1
|
|
><P
|
|
></P
|
|
><UL
|
|
><LI
|
|
><P
|
|
><EM
|
|
>General Tcl/Tk programming and
|
|
introduction:</EM
|
|
> See Brent Welch's unbelievable book
|
|
<EM
|
|
>Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk</EM
|
|
>. Due to
|
|
Brent's generosity, you can even read and print the older
|
|
editions and selected chapters from the current editions at
|
|
<A
|
|
HREF="http://www.beedub.com/book"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>http://www.beedub.com/book</A
|
|
>
|
|
.</P
|
|
></LI
|
|
><LI
|
|
><P
|
|
><EM
|
|
>Downloads needed to develop in Tcl:</EM
|
|
> See
|
|
<A
|
|
HREF="http://www.tcl.tk"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>http://www.tcl.tk</A
|
|
> for TclPro
|
|
1.4.1 for all operating systems, plus almost any add-on package you
|
|
could ever want. TclPro contains the 2 interpreters (Tclsh and
|
|
Wish) version 8.3, plus an excellent interactive debugger and a
|
|
suite of helpful tools and libraries. Version 1.4.1 was released to
|
|
the public. However, as of mid-2002, it looks like
|
|
<A
|
|
HREF="http://www.activestate.com"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>ActiveState</A
|
|
> is
|
|
taking over the TclPro product as a commercial product. Remember
|
|
you can always get the 'standard' interpreters for all
|
|
operating systems from
|
|
<A
|
|
HREF="http://tcl.sourceforge.net"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>http://tcl.sourceforge.net</A
|
|
>
|
|
because Tcl is open source software.</P
|
|
></LI
|
|
><LI
|
|
><P
|
|
><EM
|
|
>Editors with syntax highlighting, etc:</EM
|
|
>
|
|
For MS Windows, I like the inexpensive commercial product TextPad
|
|
at
|
|
<A
|
|
HREF="http://www.textpad.com"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>http://www.textpad.com</A
|
|
>.
|
|
Currently the cost is $27 US per license, and you can try before
|
|
you buy. Be sure to get the Tcl syntax definition file from their
|
|
web site. TextPad is the most feature-rich editor for MS Windows
|
|
I've ever seen, and has the ability to emulate Microsoft
|
|
editors' behavior. You can use it as an IDE for Tcl/Tk
|
|
development by interfacing it with the interpreters and your other
|
|
tools. For Unix/Linux, and maybe even for MS Windows, try Nedit at
|
|
<A
|
|
HREF="http://www.nedit.org"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>http://www.nedit.org</A
|
|
>.
|
|
It's free under the GNU General Public License. It also does a
|
|
good job of making MS Windows users productive right away.</P
|
|
></LI
|
|
><LI
|
|
><P
|
|
><EM
|
|
>Tools you'll probably want:</EM
|
|
> The
|
|
first thing most VB programmers want is to hit an ODBC database. Go
|
|
get the TclODBC 2.2 package from
|
|
<A
|
|
HREF="http://www.tcl.tk"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>http://www.tcl.tk</A
|
|
> . It's
|
|
a DLL for Win32 that hooks you into all ODBC data sources and
|
|
drivers. It comes with documentation, and there's a minimal
|
|
example above. Note that it may or may not be portable to other
|
|
operating systems, so you might want to wrap all your calls to it
|
|
into procedures. That way you can port your code to use other
|
|
libraries later. Regular expressions are almost a powerful
|
|
programming language of their own. Accordingly, they take some time
|
|
to master. The simple Tcl program 'Visual RegExp' has
|
|
helped me tremendously with that. Get it at
|
|
<A
|
|
HREF="http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/regexp"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>http://laurent.riesterer.free.fr/regexp</A
|
|
>
|
|
. There are also several packages available for hooking Tcl to the
|
|
world of ActiveX, so you can automate MS Office applications,
|
|
etc..</P
|
|
></LI
|
|
><LI
|
|
><P
|
|
><EM
|
|
>Essential help topics:</EM
|
|
> Once you have
|
|
TclPro and its help file, go to its index and visit the
|
|
'Tcl' topic. There's a concise summary of the
|
|
language's syntax rules, and the substitutions that drive it.
|
|
Also be sure to hit the 're_syntax', 'tclvars',
|
|
'tclsh', and 'wish' topics. These are apparently
|
|
translated from the Tcl man pages on Unix/Linux, and are some of
|
|
the best texts I've ever seen for WinHelp, if you need
|
|
<EM
|
|
>reference material</EM
|
|
>. I don't recommend
|
|
reading this help file as your first introduction, but it is an
|
|
excellent reference while programming.</P
|
|
></LI
|
|
><LI
|
|
><P
|
|
><EM
|
|
>'Start' menu items:</EM
|
|
> Once you
|
|
have TclPro installed, you should look at the 'Start' menu
|
|
for TclPro, and check out the 'Incr Widgets Reference' and
|
|
'Widget Tour'. These show the built-in GUI capabilities of
|
|
Tk <EM
|
|
>with the actual Tcl code required to use
|
|
them.</EM
|
|
></P
|
|
></LI
|
|
><LI
|
|
><P
|
|
><EM
|
|
>Advocacy (how to convince your management to use
|
|
Tcl/Tk):</EM
|
|
> A wealth of advocacy information is available
|
|
at <A
|
|
HREF="http://www.tcl.tk"
|
|
TARGET="_top"
|
|
>http://www.tcl.tk</A
|
|
>
|
|
.</P
|
|
></LI
|
|
></UL
|
|
></DIV
|
|
><DIV
|
|
CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
|
|
><HR
|
|
ALIGN="LEFT"
|
|
WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
|
|
SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
|
|
WIDTH="100%"
|
|
BORDER="0"
|
|
CELLPADDING="0"
|
|
CELLSPACING="0"
|
|
><TR
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="33%"
|
|
ALIGN="left"
|
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|
><A
|
|
HREF="examples.html"
|
|
ACCESSKEY="P"
|
|
>Prev</A
|
|
></TD
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="34%"
|
|
ALIGN="center"
|
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|
><A
|
|
HREF="index.html"
|
|
ACCESSKEY="H"
|
|
>Home</A
|
|
></TD
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="33%"
|
|
ALIGN="right"
|
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|
><A
|
|
HREF="copyright.html"
|
|
ACCESSKEY="N"
|
|
>Next</A
|
|
></TD
|
|
></TR
|
|
><TR
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="33%"
|
|
ALIGN="left"
|
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|
>Examples</TD
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="34%"
|
|
ALIGN="center"
|
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|
> </TD
|
|
><TD
|
|
WIDTH="33%"
|
|
ALIGN="right"
|
|
VALIGN="top"
|
|
>Copyright and License</TD
|
|
></TR
|
|
></TABLE
|
|
></DIV
|
|
></BODY
|
|
></HTML
|
|
> |