Build Error: Tcl-Tk 1.11 for Perl 5.34.0 on Windows

Looking for help with this package that is failing to build in my project.

Runtime Details

  • ActiveState
  • Language - perl 5.34.0
  • Platform - Windows

Failing Packages

  • Tcl-Tk 1.11

our Tcl installation (tclsh) fails to find Tk package.
One of possible reasons is missing file ‘pkgIndex.tcl’ in …/tk8.4/
directory; Please check if you can feed ‘package require Tk’ to tclsh

The Installation probably fails because of the missing Tk packages. Those where formerly included with ActivePerl because PPM was build on Tcl/Tk.

Hi @GeraldB,

Thanks for writing! The Tcl-Tk problem is a known and thorny issue. It may be that you can use PerlTk or Tkx though. Are you willing to try?

I’ll let the dev team know that the Tcl-Tk issue continues to vex Platform users.

Cheers!
–zak

Hi zak

thanks for answering my issue

I see, I have to explain the situation:

the application concerning here actually is designed and developed on Tkx and since 2013 with Activeperl. And my first target was to migrate from 5.24 (old fassion) to 5.34 (platform) without essential changes, because it’s “just a new version” like many others before over the years.

But all those additional TCL packages used arround the applications, like Tkx::package_require(“tooltip”) or Tkx::package_require(‘img::ico’) , did not load because the relevant TCL-Libraries where missing.

So I was looking around, where to get hands on those missing libraries, and stumbled into Tcl::Tk which threw error messages similar to those from package_require.

Since the applications just have to run on Windows, it would be easy to add those missing TCL-Libraries with Tkx::lappend(’::auto_path’, …).

What would be your recommendation?

Cheers!
gerald

Hey @GeraldB,

Thanks for the extra details!

I’ll have to ask someone more savvy with Tcl and Perl to give you a hand.

Cheers!
–zak

5.34 is still new enough that GUI toolkits haven’t been sorted out yet.

Stick to Tkx if that’s what the application is written for. At the moment, that probably means using 5.28. If and when all the build dependencies are sorted out, the virtual environment model of 5.32/34 might mean that you also need to set PERL5LIB so that it can find the Tcl library.

Your other main option is “Perl-Tk”, which is also working for 5.28 but not for 5.34. Perl-Tk moves slowly because it’s a very complex module, but it is still getting updates.

The “Tcl-Tk” Perl module is a no-mans land. It was never widely used, and once Perl-Tk got back on it’s feet, there hasn’t been much reason for using it.

thank you for those plain words.

I’ll think over that