
                        TIX FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

   Legal Issues 

          + [L.1] I am developing a commercial application, can I use Tix
            4.0?
          + [L.2] I am developing a commercial GUI builder, something
            like zApp, can I use Tix 4.0?
          + [L.3] Can I use tixForm in my commercial app which is not a
            GUI builder.
          + [L.4] I am writing a free GUI builder, can I use tixForm in
            it?
          + [L.5] Will future versions of Tix be free?

   General Questions About Using The Tix Library 

          + [G.1] What does the "-disablecallback" option do?
          + [G.2] How do I set the width of the entry subwidget inside
            the tixControl widget?
          + [G.3] What is the "setslient" method?
          + [G.4] Is there a Tix interface builder in the works?
          + [G.5] Can you tell me about the syntax of tixForm
          + [G.6] I am not using the tixForm geometry manager, but it is
            giving me errors about TixForm. What happened?
          + [G.7] How do I generate the tclIndex file for Tix?
          + [G.8] Can I ignore the default arguments passed by the
            various -command and -broeswcmd options?
          + [G.9] What does tixWidgetDoWhenIdle do?

   Question About Porting to Specific Platforms/Software 

          + [P.1] The configure script gave me strange errors.
          + [P.2] Is there an MS Windows version of Tix?
          + [P.3] Does Tix 4.0 work with Tk 4.1a?
          + [P.4] Does Tix work with Incr Tcl 2.0?
          + [P.5] How do I get Tix to work with Expect?
          + [P.6] Solaris 2.4: Filenames in FileSelectBox are chopped
            off.
          + [P.7] Do I still need libXpm?
          + [P.8] I get a coredump as soon as tixwish starts up. 

   Porting from Tix 3.6 to Tix 4.0 

          + [X.1] What happened to the tixInit command?
          + [X.2] How do I set the schemes and fontsets in Tix 4.0?
          + [X.3] How do I choose the default TK color schemes and
            fontsets? Tix is messing up the colors of my existing
            programs.
          + [X.4] I want the old bisque look of Tk 3.6. tk_bisque doesn't
            work.

   Trivia 

          + [T.1] How do you pronunce "Ioi"
          + [T.2] How on earth did you pick such a name

     _________________________________________________________________

  LEGAL ISSUES

   [L.1] I am developing a commercial application, can I use Tix 4.0? 

          ANSWER: Yes. The legal and copyright status of Tix is exactly
          the same as that of TK (with only one catch, see [2]). If you
          are bold enough to use TK in your commercial app, you should be
          able to use Tix for free.

   [L.2] I am developing a commercial GUI builder, something like zApp,
          can I use Tix 4.0? 

          ANSWER: You can use every aspect of Tix except the tixForm
          geometry manager (please read the file LEGAL.html ). That
          means, for example, your product can include the TixComboBox
          and other widgets. However, TixForm, including the TCL command,
          the C library code or the documentation, cannot be included
          into your product at all. You are also explicitly prohibited
          form examining, imitating, copying, reverse-enrgineering or
          otherwise using the file tixForm.c.

   [L.3] Can I use tixForm in my commercial app which is not a GUI
          builder. 

          ANSWER: Yes.

   [L.4] I am writing a free GUI builder, can I use tixForm in it? 

          ANSWER: Yes, provided you distributed your GUI builder freely.
          That means it should be no less free than at least one of the
          following:

         1. GNU Public License
         2. "Berkeley" type license.

   [L.5] Will future versions of Tix be free? 

          ANSWER: I don't have much control over this. The availability
          of future versions (i.e., beyond the final release of Tix 4.0)
          can be affected by many reasons. However, Tix 4.0 will be kept
          freely distributed for its lifetime or mine, whichever is
          longer.

     _________________________________________________________________

  GENERAL QUESTIONS ABOUT USING THE TIX LIBRARY

   [G.1] What does the "-disablecallback" option do? 

          ANSWER: Many Tix widgets have both a -value option and a
          -command option. Any modification of the -value will cause the
          -command callback to be executed. Sometimes this is
          undesirable. For example, calling "config -value" inside the
          callback procedure will cause the callback to be re-entered and
          thus an infinite recursion.

          The -disablecallback can be used to advoid this problem. When
          this option is set, the -command callback will not be executed
          even if the -value of a widget is changed. Therefore, if you
          need to modify the -value of a widget inside its callback, do
          this:

    proc my_callback {w} {
        $w config -disablecallback true
        $w config value blah
        $w config -disablecallback false
    }

   If you find this too troublesome, you can call the command
          tixSetSilent:

    proc my_callback {w} {
        tixSetSilent $w blah
    }

   [G.2] How do I set the width of the entry subwidget inside the
          tixControl widget? 

          ANSWER: You can use the option database or the -options flag to
          set the configuration options of the subwidgets. E.g:

option add *TixControl*entry.width 10

   OR

tixControl .c -options {
   entry.width  10
}

   [G.3] What is the "setslient" method? 

          ANSWER: This is an obsolete method. You could use it to achieve
          the same effect as the -disablecallback option. selsilent used
          to be a widget command for the ComboBox, Control, etc. It has
          been removed since Tix 4.0a4 and replaced by the tixSetSilent
          command. Please note that tixSetSilent is not a widget command
          but an external procedure.

   [G.4] Is there a Tix interface builder in the works? 

          ANSWER: Yes. But I don't know when it will be finished.
          (probably in 96).

   [G.5] Can you tell me about the syntax of tixForm 

          ANSWER: Please see the file man/Form.html or man/Form.n.

   [G.6] I am not using the tixForm geometry manager, but it is giving me
          errors about TixForm. What happened? 

          ANSWER: When you get error messages like this:

 (TixForm) Error:Trying to use more than one geometry
           manager for the same master window.
           Giving up after 50 iterations.

   Most likely, the problem is when using tixLabelFrame widgets, you
          packed to the wrong frame:

          This is WRONG:

   tixLabelFrame .d
        button .d.b
        pack .d.b

   This is the correct way:

   tixLabelFrame .d
        set f [.d subwidget frame]
        button $f.b
        pack $f.b
        pack .d

   Remember you don't pack directly into a TixLabelFrame widget. Instead,
          you should pack into its frame subwidget.

   [G.7] How do I generate the tclIndex file for Tix? 

          ANSWER: Tix tclIndex files cannot be generated using the
          standard auto_mkindex procedure. You must use the tixindex
          program in the tools/ subdirectory in the Tix distribution. The
          syntax is

 tixindex *.tcl

   [G.8] Can I ignore the default arguments passed by the various
          -command and -broeswcmd options? 

          ANSWER: You can use the tixBreak command. For example:

 tixFileSelectDialog .c -command "puts foo; tixBreak"

   [G.9] What does tixWidgetDoWhenIdle do? 

          ANSWER: It does the same thing as tixDoWhileIdle (and "after
          -idle"). The difference is it takes its second argument as the
          name of a widget and executes this command only if the widget
          exists: i.e.:

  tixWidgetDoWhenIdle tixComboBox::Update $w blah blah ..

   will execute tixComboBox::Update only if $w exists. $w may be
          destroyed after tixWidgetDoWhenIdle is called but before an
          idle event happens.

     _________________________________________________________________

  QUESTION ABOUT PORTING TO SPECIFIC PLATFORMS/SOFTWARE

   [P.1] The configure script gave me strange errors. 

          ANSWER: The problem may be you have several operating systems
          sharing the same file system. Some people encounter error
          messages like this:

# ./configure --prefix=/usr/vendor/tcl
loading cache ./config.cache
checking for a BSD compatible install... /usr/bin/installbsd -c
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking how to run the C preprocessor... cc -E
checking for unistd.h... ./configure[603]: "${ac_cv_header_$ac_safe+set}": bad
substitution

   The problem is at line 2, configure loaded in ./config.cache, which
          may have been created by a different operating system, with
          settings only usuable for that operating system. To get around
          this, you should type

make distclean
./configure
make all

   [P.2] Is there an MS Windows version of Tix? 

          ANSWER: My plan is to make the next major release of Tix (4.1)
          available under MS Windows. The projected date is the first
          quarter of 1996.

          For Tix 4.0, From Mike Bridge (mb@las.com) :

     There's a relatively complete port done by Gordon Chaffee for tkNT
     which is at roger-rabbit.cs.berkeley.edu:/pub/winnt.

   [P.3] Does Tix 4.0 work with Tk 4.1a? 

          ANSWER: Yes, just enable the "Tk 4.1 ..." option in the setup
          program. It will also compile Tix in a dynamic lobrary.

   [P.4] Does Tix work with Incr Tcl 2.0? 

          ANSWER: Yes just enable the "Itcl 2.0 ..." option in the setup
          program. Make sure you have ITcl 2.0 installed. Beta versions
          will *NOT* work. Also make sure you have installed the source
          tree of ITcl 2.0 in the same directory where you install the
          Tix source tree.

   [P.5] How do I get Tix to work with Expect? 

          ANSWER: From Paul Schmidt (kuato@netcom.com):

     I have integrated Tcl7.4, Tk4.0, Expect-5.19 and Tix4.0 on Linux
     1.2.13 (ELF) and Solaris 2.4. It isn't too hard. For an expectk+Tix
     binary you need to add a call to Tix_Init in exp_main_tk.c. If you
     can find the call to Tk_Init then just cut&paste and replace it with
     Tix_Init. Do the same if you want a Tk+Tix window shell in
     TkAppInit.c. Worked like a charm. If you have any problems just
     holler.

   [P.6] Solaris 2.4: Filenames in FileSelectBox are chopped off. 

          ANSWER: Problem:

     With Tix4.0a7 (and also with Tix4.0a6) on Solaris 2.4, when running
     the widget demo, in tixFileSelectBox, in the two scolling lists (for
     Files an Directories), some of the file and directory names have
     their first 2 letters chopped off. And some files are repeated.

   Solution: tixwish has some conflicts with /usr/ucblib/libucb.so.1 and
          you should not linke it tixwish (you don't need it). Here is a
          solution provided by Charles L Ditzel
          (charles@hanami.cyberspace.com):

     To fix the problem I was having, all I did was:

   unsetenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH
   set my PATH to something basic like:
     /usr/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/bin:/usr/openwin/bin:/opt/SUNWspro/bin
   removed config.cache
   ./configure
   make clean
   make

     and now it works!! Must have been something in my old PATH or
     LD_LIBRARY_PATH that was causing it to pick up
     /usr/ucblib/libucb.so.

   [P.7] Do I still need libXpm? 

          ANSWER: No, now Tix has its own XPM file reader. You no longer
          need libXpm.

   [P.8] I get a coredump as soon as tixwish starts up. 

          ANSWER: Try to get a backtrace of the stack when the core dump
          happens (with a debugger, for example). If the core dump
          happens right inside the call to Tk_ConfigureWidget() inside
          the file tixInit.c, then the problem is because you compiled
          libtk.a and libtix.a with different versions of the Th header
          file tk.h. Delete all the .o files from the src directory of
          Tix, fix the Makefile so that now you can compile libtix.a with
          the same tk.h that you used to compile libtk.a.

     _________________________________________________________________

  PORTING FROM TIX 3.6 TO TIX 4.0

   [X.1] What happened to the tixInit command? 

          ANSWER: You don't need to use it anymore. It is provided in Tix
          4.0 only for backward compatibility.

   [X.2] How do I set the schemes and fontsets in Tix 4.0? 

          ANSWER: You can set the color schemes and fontsets using the
          standard X resource database (.Xdefaults file). You can add
          these two lines in the user's .Xdefaults file:

        *TixScheme:   Gray
        *TixFontSet:  14Point

   If you want to switch color schemes and fontsets during run time, you
          can issue the following commands:

        tix config -scheme Gray -fontset 14Point

   Please read the tix manual page for more details

   [X.3] How do I choose the default TK color schemes and fontsets? Tix
          is messing up the colors of my existing programs. 

          ANSWER: Add these two lines in your .Xdefaults:

        *TixScheme:   TK
        *TixFontSet:  TK

   [X.4] I want the old bisque look of Tk 3.6. tk_bisque doesn't work. 

          ANSWER: The Tix widgets are not compatible with tk_bisque. If
          you want a bisque-ish look you can add to your .Xdefaults file
          the following line:

        *TixScheme:   Bisque

     _________________________________________________________________

  TRIVIA

   [T.1] How do you pronunce "Ioi" 

          ANSWER: You take the first "I" as a "Y" : so it goes like "Yoi"

   [T.2] How on earth did you pick such a name 

          ANSWER: Well, I didn't pick it myself. Nor did my parents. I
          was born in China and then my family moved to Macao, which was
          under a Portugese government. So they made a transliteration of
          my Chinese name into Portugese. And since there isn't the
          character "Y" in Portugese, they were forced name me using a
          symmetrical binary string.

     _________________________________________________________________

   Last modified Mar 3 23:21 

