Perl/Tk

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

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl/Tk by dystrophy (Monk) on Jan 28, 2001 at 14:46 UTC
If you already know Perl, then learning the Tk bit won't take you long. Checkout the Image Supplement to the Perl/Tk FAQ for a quick overview. Look at the Perl/Tk Chatterbox Client (real life code is good!). If you need help on syntax, checkout the Tk Documentation. Another good source of information - the comp.lang.perl.tk FAQs. Look at Win32::Process documentation on CPAN for how to start the dos based program. You'll want to checkout Hiding the DOS window on Win32 too. - dystrophy -	[reply]
Re: Perl/Tk by the_slycer (Chaplain) on Jan 28, 2001 at 13:59 UTC
I have written a couple apps in perl Tk, and it's not too bad once you get the hang of it. The O'Reilly book is OK, but not great, some examples to get you started, but I'm still not sure whether it was worth paying for. I think I learnt more about Tk by grabbing a bunch of perl Tk applications and browsing through the source. The nice thing about this is that you don't really have to understand what the program is doing, as the GUI creation is seperate from the back end. Having said that, Tk is nice for cross platform applications, but for something that would look more like an actual windows application you might want to look into Win32::Gui instead. I have little experience with this, but it does create a more window'sd look and feel than Tk does.	[reply]
Re: Perl/Tk by a (Friar) on Jan 28, 2001 at 10:11 UTC
A recent Dr. Dobbs (article not on-line though) had a nice article on getting started (2 issues back?) and putting "perl tk" in the search box above left returned a few dozen hits ... I think that that's a good idea to try before asking a question. Putting that same in Yahoo (a lousy, for-hire engine these days) gets quite a few links too. O'Reilly has a book. ANd updatedly (as I finally got a box that allows perl::Tk), perldoc -q tk gets: Invaluable for Perl/Tk programming are: the Perl/Tk FAQ at http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/%7Epvhp/ptk/ptkTOC.html , the Perl/Tk Reference Guide available at http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/authors/Stephen_O_Lidie/ , and the online manpages at http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/%7Eamundson/perl/perltk/toc.html. a	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl/Tk by salvadors (Pilgrim) on Jan 29, 2001 at 02:35 UTC
O'Reilly has a book Actually, O'Reilly have 2 books, the Learning book, and the pocket reference. The Learning book isn't really much good, but Amazon currently have it at 70% off. (I really don't understand their pricing here. I got my copies at $4.95 from them, thinking it was a pricing error, but they've now only put it up to $10.48) Manning also have one coming out that's supposed to be much better, so it might be better to wait for that. Tony	[reply]
(ichimunki) Using Tk by ichimunki (Priest) on Jan 29, 2001 at 05:36 UTC
Tk is an excellent GUI system for building Perl apps on Windows. I've got Nancy Walsh's book, "Learning Perl/Tk" from O'Reilly and I recommend it if you're the book type. Otherwise, I'd skip it. Her book is pretty good, but it's dated. And her style does not match the module author's style very much. The single best source of good examples of Tk code come bundled with the Tk800 module. Once installed, you can type "widget" from a DOS prompt and get an interactive demo of all kinds of features of the module with easily viewed code for the examples. It doesn't get better than that. The Tk perldocs are so-so in many places, but I've used the widget demo to get me past some sticky spots before. It's very handy.	[reply]
Re: Re: Perl/Tk by Stamp_Guy (Monk) on Jan 29, 2001 at 05:50 UTC
Thanks, I'm checking it out right now and it looks pretty promising!	[reply]
Re: Perl/Tk by Stamp_Guy (Monk) on Jan 29, 2001 at 10:18 UTC
Hey Tye and all you other guys who helped me out at the CB earlier, thanks! I finally found that I just had a corrupted zip file (must have got corrupted when I downloaded it, because the original was fine). When I uninstalled and reinstalled, everything worked great! Thanks for all your help.	[reply]
Re: Perl/Tk by MeowChow (Vicar) on Jan 29, 2001 at 02:29 UTC
If you really want to get a Windows look and feel, you'll find that Tk, while considered the de-facto GUI standard, will not give you the sort of widgets you may be accustomed to. For this reason, you may want to check out Win32::GUI as well, which uses native Win32 API calls to generate dialog boxes and common controls. update(doh!): i should really get into the habit of reading people's replies to questions before repeating what has already been said :)	[reply]