The Tcl language and Tk graphical toolkit are simple and powerful building blocks for custom applications. The Tcl/Tk combination is increasingly popular because it lets you produce sophisticated graphical interfaces with a few easy commands, develop and change scripts quickly, and conveniently tie together existing utilities or programming libraries. One of the attractive features of Tcl/Tk is the wide variety of commands, many offering a wealth of options. Most of the things you'd like to do have been anticipated by the language's creator, John Ousterhout, or one of the developers of Tcl/Tk's many powerful extensions. Thus, you'll find that a command or option probably exists to provide just what you need. And that's why it's valuable to have a quick reference that briefly describes every command and option in the core Tcl/Tk distribution as well as the most popular extensions. Keep this book on your desk as you write scripts, and you'll be able to find almost instantly the particular option you need. Most chapters consist of alphabetical listings. Since Tk and mega-widget packages break down commands by widget, the chapters on these topics are organized by widget along with a section of core commands where appropriate. Contents include:
- Core Tcl and Tk commands and Tk widgets
- C interface (prototypes)
- Expect
- [incr Tcl] and [incr Tk]
- Tix
- TclX
- BLT
- Oratcl, SybTcl, and Tclodbc
Paul Raines is a physicist and scientific programmer at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford University where he is part of a large collaboration studying CP violation (why charge times parity is not conserved in some particle decays, an arcane research topic that bears on the more understandable question of why there is an excess of matter over antimatter in the universe). He is a huge advocate of scripting languages and has been using Tcl on various projects since 1992. He also maintains a freely distributable quick- reference guide for Tcl/Tk, now published as O'Reilly & Associates' Tcl/Tk Pocket Reference. When he can get away from the lab, Paul enjoys hiking, bridge, and soccer. He lives in San Mateo, California, with his wife Deborah and her horse and three cats. Jeff Tranter works as a software designer for a Canadian telecommunications company and has been using Tcl since 1992 on a number of programming projects related to software tools and testing. He is an active user of Linux, a contributor to the Linux Documentation Project, and author of the O'Reilly book Linux Multimedia Guide. His hobbies include Ham radio, playing guitar, and mountain biking.
