Tk (computing)

From Free net encyclopedia

(Difference between revisions)

Revision as of 12:06, 20 April 2006
@modi (Talk | contribs)
/* See also */
Next diff →

Current revision

In computing, Tk is an open source, cross-platform widget toolkit, that is, a library of basic elements for building a graphical user interface (GUI).

Tk was developed by John Ousterhout as an extension for the Tcl scripting language. Through so-called "bindings", Tk can be used under other languages, such as Perl, Python, and Ruby. There are two ways for using Tk from Perl: the Tcl::Tk Perl module uses Tcl as a bridge (this approach provides more flexibility), and Perl/Tk has Tcl stripped away (only adopted Tcl/Tk extensions are available). Python and Ruby also use Tcl as a bridge for Tk.

Tk has been ported to run on most flavors of Linux, Apple Macintosh, Unix, and Windows. Since Tcl/Tk 8, it offers "native look and feel" (for instance, menus and buttons are displayed in the manner of "native" software for any given platform). Also, there are several extensions to provide external drag-and-drop, non-rectangular windows, and native widgets.

The most unusual features of Tk are its canvas and text widgets, which provide capabilities found in few if any other widget toolkits.

Like Tcl, Tk supports Unicode within the Basic Multilingual Plane but it has not yet been extended to handle 32-bit Unicode.