threads / discuss / 12015

Trouble with gitk and ActiveState tcltk on OS X

Subject: Trouble with gitk and ActiveState tcltk on OS X

## tl;dr

5 messages between Feb 10, 2008 and Feb 11, 2008.

replies: 4people: 4as markdown or json

Seth Falcon· Feb 10, 2008, 21:15 UTC · lore

Hi all,

I'm hoping that another OS X git user can point me in the right direction...

I installed the ActiveState tcltk and set the following in git/config.mak:

    TCLTK_PATH=/usr/local/bin/wish8.5

With this, git gui works great (I get a real icon when switching apps and the overall look is more consistent than when I was running with X11 + MacPorts tcltk).

But gitk does not work. gitk starts up but no window appears. The menus appear, but that's it.

If I start X11 and switch the wish path to /opt/local/bin/wish in the gitk script, then things work. Any suggestions for running gitk without X11 on OS X?

Thanks,

+ seth

-- 
Seth Falcon | seth@userprimary.net | blog: http://userprimary.net/user/

Shawn O. Pearce· Feb 11, 2008, 04:49 UTC · re: Seth Falcon · lore

Re: Trouble with gitk and ActiveState tcltk on OS X

Seth Falcon <seth@userprimary.net> wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> I'm hoping that another OS X git user can point me in the right
> direction...
> 
> I installed the ActiveState tcltk and set the following in
> git/config.mak:
> 
>     TCLTK_PATH=/usr/local/bin/wish8.5
> 
> With this, git gui works great (I get a real icon when switching apps
> and the overall look is more consistent than when I was running with
> X11 + MacPorts tcltk).

For what its worth I use the native Tcl/Tk that ships with Mac OS X, /usr/bin/wish, which is really in /Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework. I've never used the ActiveState Tcl/Tk package on Mac OS X.

git-gui builds against the Tk.framework I mentioned above when on Mac OS X. In particular the git-gui Makefile seems to ignore the setting of TCLTK_PATH when it sees the above mentioned Tk.framework is available in your filesystem.

The reason why you get nice icons for git-gui is because we use a feature of the Aqua port Tcl/Tk framework that allows us to create a full Mac OS X app by copying a tiny executable from the framework, and supplying our own resource bundle. The bundle configures the icon. Its the only way to get a custom icon on Mac OS X.

Launching gitk from within git-gui (Repository -> Visualize History) uses the same app and bundle, so gitk inherits the icon too. I'd also bet gitk works this way, because it isn't launching through the ActiveState Tcl/Tk port.

In short, why not just use the native Aqua Tcl/Tk that Apple ships?
Why go through X11 and MacPorts?

-- 
Shawn.

Kalle Olavi Niemitalo· Feb 11, 2008, 08:26 UTC · re: Shawn O. Pearce · lore

Re: Trouble with gitk and ActiveState tcltk on OS X

"Shawn O. Pearce" <spearce@spearce.org> writes:

> In short, why not just use the native Aqua Tcl/Tk that Apple ships?

With the Tcl 8.4b and Tk 8.4 that Apple bundles with Mac OS 10.5.1, two-finger scrolling with the MacBook touchpad does not work in gitk, and I think buttons in dialog boxes were sometimes invisible. Upgrading both to 8.4.16 (Tk still Aqua) fixed these problems for me.

Seth Falcon· Feb 11, 2008, 15:51 UTC · re: Shawn O. Pearce · lore

Re: Trouble with gitk and ActiveState tcltk on OS X

"Shawn O. Pearce" <spearce@spearce.org> writes:

Show 22 quoted lines

> For what its worth I use the native Tcl/Tk that ships with Mac OS X,
> /usr/bin/wish, which is really in /Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework.
> I've never used the ActiveState Tcl/Tk package on Mac OS X.
>
> git-gui builds against the Tk.framework I mentioned above when on
> Mac OS X.  In particular the git-gui Makefile seems to ignore the
> setting of TCLTK_PATH when it sees the above mentioned Tk.framework
> is available in your filesystem.
>
> The reason why you get nice icons for git-gui is because we use a
> feature of the Aqua port Tcl/Tk framework that allows us to create a
> full Mac OS X app by copying a tiny executable from the framework,
> and supplying our own resource bundle.  The bundle configures
> the icon.  Its the only way to get a custom icon on Mac OS X.
>
> Launching gitk from within git-gui (Repository -> Visualize History)
> uses the same app and bundle, so gitk inherits the icon too.
> I'd also bet gitk works this way, because it isn't launching through
> the ActiveState Tcl/Tk port.
>
> In short, why not just use the native Aqua Tcl/Tk that Apple ships?
> Why go through X11 and MacPorts?

Hmm. I don't doubt that I've inadvertently made things harder than they need to be, but...

I've just tried uninstalling the ActiveState stuff and removing the MacPorts stuff.

Indeed git gui runs, but I no longer get the nice icon (instead a default Tcl/Tk icon with a feather). Launching gitk from the git gui menu results in the same behavior for me: it launches and its menu appears, but no window. It is quite odd because I can open the preference window for gitk via the menu and _that_ mini window does appear. Same thing if I launch gitk from the command line.

If I try to open the "Git Gui.app" I get: ziti:git-gui seth$ open Git\ Gui.app/ LSOpenFromURLSpec() failed with error -10810 for the file /Users/seth/src/git-MASTER/git-gui/Git Gui.app.

I've recently upgraded my system to Leopard, so I wouldn't be surprised if that is related to some of these issues.

Is there a big difference between how git gui uses Tcl/Tk and gitk? It seems really odd to me that one works and the other not so much :-\

Any other things to try or suggestions of where to look for root causes?

Thanks again,

+ seth

-- 
Seth Falcon | seth@userprimary.net | blog: http://userprimary.net/user/

Jay Soffian· Feb 11, 2008, 17:59 UTC · re: Shawn O. Pearce · lore

Re: Trouble with gitk and ActiveState tcltk on OS X

On Feb 10, 2008 11:49 PM, Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org> wrote:

> For what its worth I use the native Tcl/Tk that ships with Mac OS X,
> /usr/bin/wish, which is really in /Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework.

Under 10.5, it's /System/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework and the app is now /System/Library/Frameworks/Tk.framework/Resources/Wish\ Shell.app. I'll work on a patch for the git-gui Makefile in next (or master?) to work w/both 10.4 and 10.5 if I can figure out the darn Makefile quoting (loathe whitespace in path names).

j.