Building the Windows Binaries

To build Tix on Windows, you must have the following:

1. Download the Tcl, Tk and Tix sources

You can download latest version of the Tcl7.5, 7.6 or 8.0 from ftp://ftp.sunlabs.com/pub . There are detailed instructions that comes with these packages about compiling them on Windows. Hopefully that will give you a good exercise on setting up the environment for compiling Tcl-based programs on the Windows platforms.

You can then get the Tix source distribution at ftp://ftp.xpi.com/pub/Tix41.zip . This ZIP file contains files with long file names and must be unzipped by an UNZIP program that knows long filenames, such as winzip.exe.

You should put the Tcl, Tk and Tix source packages in the same directory. For example, my directories look like this:

C:\tcl7.6
C:\tk4.2
C:\Tix4.1

2. Compile Tcl and Tk

Follow the instructions that come with Tcl and Tk. If you can compile successfully, you would get the following files:

C:\tcl7.6\win\tcl76.dll
C:\tcl7.6\win\tclpip76.dll
C:\tk4.2\win\tk42.dll
These are the files you need to run Tix on Windows.

3. Compile Tix

Change to the Tix4.1\Win subdirectory. Tix supports several versions of Tcl. You choose the version of Tcl to compile Tix with by using the TCL_VER variable: If you have BC++, use make -f makefile.bc instead.

When make or nmake finishes, you will get Tix binaries inside the build directories. For example, if you compile Tix for Tcl 7.6, you will be the following files:

C:\Tix4.1\win\tcl7.6\tix4142.dll
C:\Tix4.1\win\tcl7.6\tix4142.exe
The executable file tix4142.exe contains Tcl, Tk and Tix. You can use it to run an Tix script by:
set TIX_LIBRARY=C:\Tix4.1\library C:\Tix4.1\win\tcl7.6\tix4142.exe foo.tcl

4. Fixing DLL problems

You may run into certain problems related to DLL's when you execute tix4142.exe. For example: When tix4142.exe starts up, it will load in the following DLL's Windows searches for a DLL file by the following order:
  1. Same directory as executable.
  2. Windows system directory.
  3. directories in the PATH environment variable.
To ensure that the correct DLLs are loaded, you can copy all the DLL's used by tix4142.exe into the directory where tix4142.exe is.

5. Installing Tix

You can install Tix into the Tcl installation directory so that you can load Tix with the "package require" command and no longer need to set the TIX_LIBRARY variable:

  1. Create a directory tix4.1 under the Tcl installation directory, usually in C:\Program Files\Tcl7.6\lib.

  2. Copy all the files under Tix4.1b1\library into the C:\Program Files\Tcl7.6\lib\tix4.1 directory.

  3. Copy the file Tix4.1\win\pkgIndex.tcl into the C:\Program Files\Tcl7.6\lib\tix4.1 directory.

Now you should be able to start up wish42.exe and execute the following command to load in Tix.
package require -exact Tix [tixBinVer 4.1]
Read the file Tix4.1\docs\Pkg.txt for more info about dynamically loading Tix.

FAQ's for running Tix on Windows

How do I set an environment variable.

You can set it in your DOS window by typing something like "set TIX_LIBRARY=C:\Tix4.1\win". This will affect that particular DOS window only. If you want the change to affect the whole Windows environment (for example, you want launch txwish41.exe by double-clicking on its icon), you must put the commands in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and then reboot your machine.

I get an "out of environment space" error from DOS.

Edit your CONFIG.SYS file and add the switch "/E:1024" to the SHELL=COMMAND.COM line. Reboot. This should give you enough env space.

My C compiler says "unrecognized file format tk42.lib" or something like that.

You compiled tk42.lib with VC++ and are compiling Tix with Borland C++, or vice verse. Use the same compiler to compile all binaries.

Last modified Sat Feb 15 21:52:36 EST 1997 --- Serial 856069650