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Kevin Walzer, software developer.

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Finally, Tk-Cocoa extensions

I'm pleased to announce the release of three Mac-platform-native Tk-extensions that build on the Cocoa frameworks to integrate with the new Cocoa-based version of Tk for the Mac.

Macsheet

This package implements Mac-native "sheet" windows for Tk. "Sheet" windows are dialogs or toplevel windows that slide down from the top of a Mac toplevel window, and then slide back up when they are dismissed. Tk on the Mac has long supported the "sheet" effect for system dialogs, such as tk_messageBox, when a "-parent" option is passed to the call. The macsheet package adds the ability to create customized dialogs or windows with a similar effect.

Tkdock

The tkdock package allows a Tcl/Tk application to manipulate the Dock icon. The package allows an application to change its icon on the OS X Dock while running; it also allows the application to set a badge label to the Dock.

Tkmacicon

The tkmacicon package renders platform-native icons on OS X as Tk images. The ::tkmacicon::retrieveicon command takes three arguments: a file path or file extension, width, and height. If a file path is specified, then the package will return the specific icon for that file as defined by the Mac OS, in the width and height specified in the arguments. If a file extension is specified, then the package will return the specific icon for that file type as defined by the Mac OS, in the width and height specified in the arguments. Specifying the file extension rather than the actual file can yield faster performance for large numbers of files.

All three packages are available at http://tk-components.sourceforge.net/ and are licensed under Tcl's BSD-style license. Both file releases and SVN downloads are available. In addition to source code, the packages include demo scripts and man pages.

These extensions require Tk-Cocoa to run; they are not compatible with the older version of Tk based on the Mac's Carbon framework. Tk 8.6 for the Mac is based on Cocoa, and a backport of Tk-Cocoa to 8.5 is available at http://github.com/das/tcltk/tree/de-carbon-8-5.

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