Tcl/Tk alpha channel bug on OSX Mavericks is fixeded, but how/when can I use the fix?

Peter Tomcsanyi tomcsanyi at slovanet.sk
Sun Aug 3 13:24:13 EDT 2014


Hello to all,

My OSX is 10.9 Mavericks.
I use Python 3.4. with ActiveTcl 8.5.15.1.

I was struggling with several approaches to using PNG files with alpha 
channel (partial transparency).
Following my question in this newsgroup (see the thread "Python 3.4.1 
installer on Mac links Python to old Tcl/Tk" and all the kind suggestions 
what to do), I have tried several things:
- Used the package Img with Tk 8.5
- Used PIL to load the file and then converting it by ImageTk.PhotoImage.
- Installed MacPorts' version of Python 3.4 with Tk 8.6
But none of the approaches were able to show corretly my partially 
transparent image - the image was loaded and shown but the alpha channel was 
reduced to binary transparency.

I think that it is because of this problem in Mavericks:
http://core.tcl.tk/tk/tktview?name=99b84e49ff

The above link says that it has been solved in Tcl/Tk.
But: what does it mean for me - a Python user?
Can anyone say when a version containing the above bug fix will be available 
in a form of an installable package that I can use with Python on a Mac?
How can I know that such a package is avaibale?
Or can anyone point me to some instructions how could I compile Tcl/Tk for 
myslef and (more importanty) how to install the result of that compilation 
so that Python 3.4 recognizes that it should use that package (and not three 
other installations of Tcl/Tk in my computer)?

Thanks,

Peter 





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