Pmw.Balloon under Windows

[Aki Niimura]

Hello everyone,

I'm encountering a weird problem and couldn't find any Internet
postings
that are relevant to my problem and it seems coming from the Pmw
Balloon
widget inside.

I have developed a Tkinter software using Pmw.
The software is being developed under Solaris but is targeting all
platforms
including Windows.

The software is working fine under Solaris 9.
However, when I tried it under Windows, it worked also fine but it spit
out
the following error message when exiting.

(from cygwin terminal)

% c:/Python23/python my_app.py

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an
unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

(the same error message is observed when I run the program directly in
Windows XP environment.)
//

First, I thought I screwed up something because it was working fine
before
with my older software version.

After painful investigation, I found Pmw.Balloon was causing this
problem
(because the problem went away if I commented out all balloon
statements).

Then I compared my usages and Pmw Balloon example because the example
didn't
cause this. (http://pmw.sourceforge.net/doc/Balloon.html)

But I didn't see any problem in my coding.

//

Then I found two clues:
(1) The problem won't occur if I quit the program by clicking 'X' of
the Window decoration. (not from Quit in the Menu)

(2) The Pmw Balloon example has the exact same problem *if*
I change the program to quit using widget quit() method.

        self.suicide = Tkinter.Button(frame, text='Kill me soon!',
            command = parent.quit)           # this causes the problem
#            command = self.killButton)      # The original one

Of course, the problem is occurring only under Windows. (Windows
XP/Cygwin)

//

My questions are:
(1) Why my program is complaining and is there any workaround?

(2) What is the difference between using widget quit() method
and using Windows 'X' button.
- I know clicking Windows 'X' button generates an event but I thought
- ultimately it reached to the same routine to terminate the program.

(3) Is it possible to fake clicking 'X' button?
I see a widget has event_generate() method.

//

Any feedbacks, comments are highly appreciated.
It would be nice if you can send your reply to <akineko at pacbell.net> .

Thank you for your attention.

Best regards,
Aki Niimura