[Pythonmac-SIG] Recommended Tcl/Tk with Py-2.6.x? (was: Test failure...)

[Ned Deily]

In article <1267598651.4b8e053b514be at astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu>,
 Tom Loredo <loredo at astro.cornell.edu> wrote:
> Sorting out the Tcl/Tk situation with Python-2.6.4 is coming
> up quickly on my MacPy to-do list (I'm just setting up a new machine,
> as you may have guessed).  I've experienced the weirdness
> associated with creating new windows in IDLE (with Apple's
> Py-2.6.1).  I was not clear on whether this problem is unique
> to Apple's Python (in Snow Leopard), to their Tcl/Tk, or if it
> is a genuine Python/Tcl issue in the 2.6 series.
> 
> Digging around, I've found a bug report:
> 
> http://bugs.python.org/issue6864
> 
> I find the report a bit confusing; it gives me the impression that
> the problem is due to a not-yet-understood (as of Py-2.6.3) interaction
> between Python and Tk 8.5.  But it sounds like you have a working
> setup with Py-2.6.4 and Tk 8.5.
> 
> Do you have a recommended Tk setup that works?  E.g., does ActiveTcl 8.5
> solve this issue (with Py-2.6.4)?  My web searching hasn't turned up
> any clear advice about this.

Ugh!  As far as I know there has not been much progress on this issue 
since that bug report was opened; certainly I haven't been thinking 
about it.  Time to do some retesting.  If anyone has recently, please 
speak up.

The main problem before was 64-bit Tk availability.  IIRC, the only real 
game in town for that was the Apple-supplied 8.5 in 10.6 which 
apparently pulled in from the TkAqua Cocoa/64-bit port project (which 
now may be a part of 8.6?).   Kevin Walzer was trying to get that the 
TkAqua 64-bit stuff to work with Python on 10.5 a while back but he ran 
into various problems.   Perhaps he can jump in here with an update.  
I've seen reports that the X11 version of Tk may work in 64-bit (I think 
the MacPorts version does) but I have no (recent) personal experience 
with X11 Tk on OS X and, frankly, I'm not looking to get any more.  X11 
Tk would probably require some build tweaking.

If you don't mind running any Tk-based stuff in 32-bit mode, either the 
Apple-supplied Tk 8.4 or ActiveState 8.4 worked fine when we last poked 
at this.  But one may need to tweak the build of Tkinter in Python to 
dynamically link with 8.4, rather than 8.5, when building on 10.6, since 
both versions exist in /System/Library/Frameworks.  Something else to 
look at.  Ronald has suggested modifying Tkinter and the installer build 
to allow one Python instance to dynamically link with either 8.4 or 8.5, 
depending on what is available but I don't think anyone has found time 
to work on that.  Contributions welcome!

The easy way to avoid nearly all the hassle, at the moment, is to stick 
with 32-bit and build Python on 10.5 - not a good long term solution.

-- 
 Ned Deily,
 nad at acm.org