Problems with Tk on Win32

sfinster has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello everyone,

I'm working on a Tk script that needs to work on both Windows (Most likely NT) and linux/solaris. Unfortunately some of our tools are out of date.

I have the added requirement of reading a couple of variables out of the registry on the Win32 systems instead of getting them from the command line.

Prior to last week, I was using Perl version 5.6.1. It does not appear to have registry support, so I downloaded ActivePerl-5.8.4.810-MSWin32-x86.msi and installed it.

I've noticed some problems since then. Most troublesome is the fact that my validation callbacks for my entry fields only appear to work once. The first time I enter invalid data, everything works as expected. From then on, the "type" argument is 8 instead of the expected 1, 0, or -1. Has anyone seen this?

Second question: Is there a way to have a "use Win32::Registry" line that will only be loaded on Win32? It's unnecessary on my solaris box, and causing problems.

Thanks.

Update:
I was finally able to get around my Registry issues by using the "Trapping errors in require or use" solution in the Perl Cookbook. I found that the only way I could get things to work on both Win32 and our version of Solaris (2.6) was to require the module in the begin/eval structure, and to import it later on. I had to fully qualify the $Registry variable and all the calls, but it finally worked.

On the Tk::Entry issue, I've found that how I define the callback determines the values that get sent into it.
If I define the validation style as 'focus', my $type variable gets a 3 on enter focus and a 4 on leave focus.
If I define a 'key' validation, $type gets 6 on a forced validation, 7 on text deletion, and 8 on text entry.

I modified the widget program to determine this, so I know it's not just my program. The Tk::Entry perldoc still says that the values should be -1, 0, and 1. Anyone??

Comment on Problems with Tk on Win32

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Problems with Tk on Win32 by tall_man (Parson) on Oct 04, 2004 at 16:51 UTC
I have used Perl::Tk on both Windows and Solaris, and I do not remember any validation callback problems of that sort. For conditional inclusion of modules, try this: `BEGIN { if ($^O =~ /^Win/) { require Win32::Registry; Win32::Registry->import; } }` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Problems with Tk on Win32 by Madams (Pilgrim) on Oct 04, 2004 at 23:03 UTC
Actually it's even simpler! `#!c:/opt/perl -w . . . use if $^O=~/^win/i, Win32::TieRegistry; . . .` [download] if.pm is currently in the standard distro. `madams55075.spamtrap.@comcast.net=~s/\.spamtrap\.//;`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Problems with Tk on Win32 by runrig (Abbot) on Oct 04, 2004 at 18:46 UTC
You probably want to use Win32::TieRegistry instead of Win32::Registry. The former is alot easier to use. Use the method tall_man outlines above for including it only when running on Windows.	[reply]
Re^2: Problems with Tk on Win32 by pg (Canon) on Oct 04, 2004 at 20:49 UTC
Not just easy to use, it is actually stated in Win32::Registry document: "Win32::Registry - accessing the Windows registry `[`obsolete, use Win32::TieRegistry`]`"	[reply] [d/l] [select]