[issue15663] Investigate providing Tcl/Tk 8.6 with OS X installers

[Ned Deily]

Ned Deily <nad at python.org> added the comment:

As of 3.7.0b1, the new macOS 10.9+ installer variant includes a private copy of Tcl/Tk 8.6: 8.6.7 for 3.7.0b1, updated to 8.6.8 for 3.7.0b2.  The framework layout is pretty much the same as in the original attempt, that is, everything is installed within /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework.  One big thing that has changed since the previous attempt: thanks to work by Matthew Brett et al, major Python packages that had C code referencing Tk (like matplotlib and Pillow) now discover Tcl and Tk symbols dynamically at run time rather than having to compile with a particular Tcl/Tk version's header files. That was the hangup previously because third-party apps had hardcoded paths to the Tcl/Tk header files on macOS.  Hopefully, there aren't many of those left and, if so, they can borrow code from matplotlib (https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/6442).  The legacy 10.6+ installer variants still link with Tcl/Tk 8.5.x from /Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework (a la ActiveTcl); ActiveState now only provides 8.6.x packages for macOS 10.9+ and Tk 8.6.x gets little exposure on older systems and depends more and more on features in newer macOS releases.

----------
resolution:  -> fixed
stage:  -> resolved
status: open -> closed
versions: +Python 3.7 -Python 3.6

_______________________________________
Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue15663>
_______________________________________