Building the Unix Binaries
1. Download the Tcl, Tk and/or Itcl sources
You may have already installed Tcl, Tk and Itcl on your system. The
installed binaries usually reside in the
/usr/local/
directory. However, the build process of Tix doesn't use the
installed binaries because doing that may result in subtle version
conflects. Instead, Tix uses only the binaries from the Tcl, Tk and
Itcl source directories. Install sources of these packages if they
are not already in your system.
Tcl 8.0, 8.1 8.2 and 8.3
: The source code of these
Tcl releases can be found at
http://tcl.activestate.com
http://tcl.activestate.com
. Remember to download the source
code of the corresponding versions of Tk as well.
Itcl 3.0 and 3.1
: Download the source code from
ftp://www.tcltk.com/pub/itcl
ftp://www.tcltk.com/pub/itcl
Make sure that the source directory of these package reside in the
same directory as Tix. For example, to compile Tix 8.1.2 for Tcl 8.3
and Itcl 3.0, a typical source directory would look like this:
/home/src/tcl8.3.5/
/home/src/tk8.3.5/
/home/src/tix-8.1.4/
IMPORTANT:
Do not arrange your source directory in any
other way. Do not change the names for these directories. Otherwise
Tix will not be configured properly.
2. Configure and compile the desired version(s) of Tcl and/or Itcl
Tcl, Tk and Itcl comes with installation guides and should be easy
to build. In case you have any problems building these packages, you
can send your questions to the comp.lang.tcl newsgroup or to the
respective authors of these packages.
For example, assuming your source directory is structured as above,
you can build Tcl 8.3 and Tk 8.3 by issuing the following Unix commands:
cd /home/src/tcl8.3/unix
./configure --enable-shared
make
cd /home/src/tk8.3/unix
./configure --enable-shared
make
3. Configure and compile Tix
Make sure you have configured and build the desired
version(s) of Tcl and/or Itcl.
Change into the
tix-8.1.4/unix
directory and execute the configure script:
cd /home/src/tix-8.1.4/unix
./configure
Inside the
tix-8.1.4/unix
directory, you
will see several subdirectories for building Tix for specific
version of Tcl/Tk or Itcl. Change into the appropriate
subdirectory. For example, if you want to build Tix for
Tcl8.3/Tk8.3, execute the following commands:
cd tk8.3
./configure --enable-shared
make
Before you run the
configure
script, you can type:
./configure --help
to find out the available options.
Repeat step 3 for any other versions of Tcl/Tk or
Itcl that you want to build Tix for.
4. Experimenting with Tix
When you finish building Tix, you will find the
tixwish
program inside the build directories
(e.g.,
tix-8.1.4/unix/tk8.3/tixwish
). Or, if you
build Tix for Itcl, the program will be called
itixwish
.
Tix comes with a number of demo programs. You can run these
program by running the
demos/widget
script with
tixwish
or
itixwish
. Make sure that you have set the
TIX_LIBRARY
variable accordingly (see below). If you haven't
installed Tcl and/or Tk then you'll need to set your
TCL_LIBRARY
and
TK_LIBRARY
environment variable as
well (see the Tcl and Tk README files for information on this).
You can type the following command in your shell:
cd /home/src/tix-8.1.4/demos
env TIX_LIBRARY=/home/src/tix-8.1.4/library ../unix/tk8.3/tixwish widget
This will open up the Tix demo window. You can click on the "
Run
Sample Programs
" tab and execute the sample programs:
(Screen 4.1 Tix widget
demostration program)
5. Installing Tix
If you are sufficiently convinced that Tix works properly, you can
install the Tix binaries and scripts on your system. If you are
paranoid, these is a small set of test scripts that tests the
behavior of Tix under various configurations. You can do this by
typing "
make tests
" inside the build-subdirectories, e.g.:
cd /home/src/tix-8.1.4/unix/tk8.3
make tests
Hopefully it will report "
0 error(s) found
".
Type "
make install
" to install Tix's binaries and script
files in standard places:
cd /home/src/tix-8.1.4/unix
make install
In the default configuration information will be installed in
/usr/local
so you'll need write permission on this
directory. If you'd like to use a different installation directory,
you can specify the "
--exec-prefix
" and "
--prefix
"
options for the configure script in step
3
and then rebuild
Tix.
6. Trouble Shooting
If
make
fails then you'll have to personalize the
Makefile
's for your site or possibly modify the distribution
in other ways.  First check the files
FAQ.html
FAQ.html
and
Porting.html
Porting.html
to see if there are hints for compiling on your system. If you need
to modify
Makefile
's, there are comments at the beginning of
it that describe the things you might want to change and how to
change them.
If you have trouble compiling Tix, I'd suggest looking at the files
FAQ.html
FAQ.html
and
Porting.html
Porting.html
. It contains information
that people have sent me about changes they had to make to compile
Tix in various environments.
I make no guarantees that this information is accurate, complete, or
up-to-date, but you may find it useful. If you get Tix running on a
new configuration and had to make non-trivial changes to do it, I'd
be happy to receive new information. I'm also interested in
hearing how to change the configuration setup so that Tix compiles
on additional platforms "out of the box".
