Hi, I'm developing an R/TclTk application which uses the BWidget and Tktable Tk extensions and I'm trying to make it easy to install. For now, I'm focusing on Windows users who start with nothing. I have built Tcl/Tk and Tktable for windows using Msys/MinGW. (BWidget contains only Tcl scripts so does not need building.) I have then copied Tktable and BWidget into the lib subdirectory of the Tcl directory in R source, created by unzipping R_Tcl.zip from Brian Ripley's webpage. (I should also try creating the entire R_Tcl.zip myself, rather than mixing and matching.) Finally I have followed the instructions in src/gnuwin32/INSTALL including "make distribution" which has built an R installation wizard including the Tk extensions. It seems to work fine and I don't think I've violated any license agreements - it's my understanding that Tktable and BWidget source (both on sourceforge) are under BSD, like the other Tcl already included with R. Of course some would say that you can build faster and smaller Tcl libraries using Visual C++. I didn't notice much difference with my application running Tktable. I did try buildling Tcl/Tk with the free version of VC++.NET SDK but nmake -f makefile.vc in Tcl_source/win/ complained that vcvars32.bat needed to be run. The latest version of the (free) VC++.NET SDK seems to only have sdkvars.bat, which does something similar to vcvars32.bat (i.e. set PATH, INCLUDE, LIB and NetSamplePath), but running it didn't seem to help so I turned to Msys/MinGW. Maybe I should buy the full Visual C++/Visual Studio? I'm wondering whether anyone would like to point out any potential problems (license or otherwise) with distributing a customized R installation wizard. Also, I would be happy to become involved in the maintenance/testing of R_Tcl.zip for windows if I'm qualified, but I suppose this would require buying the full Visual C++/Visual Studio, right? If there is sufficient building/testing from volunteers, are the R core developers considering bundling more Tcl/Tk packages with R, or does the problem of HOW MANY packages/megabytes to add mean that there would always have to be a separate "batteries included" installation wizard? Regards, James
Adding Tk extensions to R for windows
1 message · James Wettenhall