in reply to Perl/TK: how to set defaults for the whole script?

Use a function.

sub build_scale { my $frame = shift; my $scale = $frame->Scale( -width => '10', -length => '200', -sliderlength => '16', -orient => 'horizontal', -borderwidth => '1', -cursor => 'hand2', -showvalue => '0' ); return $scale; }