Newbie: Tkinter and macPython

[Russell E. Owen]

In article <f9b7c11d.0307011048.377579a4 at posting.google.com>,
 gtewalt at earthlink.net (gt) wrote:

>Wow.
>I never expected anything this thourough for a response.
>Thanks Russell.
>I have actually installed MacPython 2.3b1.
>I tried the package manager, but at the time it wouldnt connect to
>the 'database' (if I remember correctly)
>At any rate, it looks like I need aqua Tk.
>It would seem that I should un-install 2.3b1, install
>aqua Tk, then reinstall 2.3b1 and implement the package manager.
>Thanks again.

Sorry to hear that. The package manager in 2.3b1 had some bugs that are 
probably fixed in 2.3b2, but it's so new that I don't think there's a 
binary installer for MacOS X yet.

I doubt you need to uninstall your Python.

Installing Tk in advance is important if you buld Python from source 
(because the make script automatically builds Tkinter for you if it can 
find Tcl/Tk). I don't think it matters when installing from binary.

Unfortunately, I do not know how to add Tkinter to the binary installed 
version of Python 2.3 (given that you are having trouble with the 
package manager). I'm sure somebody does know. Try posting to the 
MacPython mailing list.

Two other options are:
- Build Python from source (e.g. see link below). A bit slow but it 
certainly does work.
- Use Bob Ippolito's binary installer for Python 2.2.2, which includes 
lots of extras.

I've put what I know about building Python for MacOS X at 
<http://www.astro.washington.edu/owen/PythonOnMacOSX.html>. Probably not 
much there I didn't already post, but at least now it's in one place and 
can be updated. I'm hoping Python 2.3 final will be so easy to install 
that extra information is redundant.

-- Russell