From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl


Hi again,
Still working on getting back up to speed with tcl. I have been looking around
for a GUI builder that works well with tcl\tk. I have found some that I used years ago
(Visual Tcl, GUIBuilder) etc. but am still looking for one that makes sense to me.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Bob L.
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl

At Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:06:17 GMT Bob Liesenfeld <user21406@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

Hi again,
Still working on getting back up to speed with tcl. I have been looking around
for a GUI builder that works well with tcl\tk. I have found some that I used years ago
(Visual Tcl, GUIBuilder) etc. but am still looking for one that makes sense to me.
Any suggestions?

There was this one I used years (decades) ago, but I eventually found that I could create mega-widgets (using snit) faster and much more to my liking, just using a text editor. The downside of the GUI builder I used was that while I could build a reasonably GUI, I still had to code in all of the "action" code. And there was all sorts of "global" variable and naming issues (since everything was in the global name space, etc. With SNIT I could do things like create re-usable megawidgets, keep all of the "local" action code inside the "class" name space (not exactly private, but contained within a namespace and scope).
I have never really liked GUI IDEs or anything like that, They tend to be too constrained, unnecessarily complicated, always missing some functionality (or the functionality was hard to find -- eg hiding is some random menu or hiding as some silly icon that I don't know what it means -- I am fluent in
*English*, not some bastardisation of ancient Egyptian), insisted on unnecissiarly
colorful syntax highlighting, and I really don't need or want random coding "suggestions" thrown at me.

Thanks!
Bob L.

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl


Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> posted:

At Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:06:17 GMT Bob Liesenfeld <user21406@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

Hi again,
Still working on getting back up to speed with tcl. I have been looking around
for a GUI builder that works well with tcl\tk. I have found some that I used years ago
(Visual Tcl, GUIBuilder) etc. but am still looking for one that makes sense to me.
Any suggestions?

There was this one I used years (decades) ago, but I eventually found that I could create mega-widgets (using snit) faster and much more to my liking, just
using a text editor. The downside of the GUI builder I used was that while I could build a reasonably GUI, I still had to code in all of the "action" code.
And there was all sorts of "global" variable and naming issues (since everything was in the global name space, etc. With SNIT I could do things like
create re-usable megawidgets, keep all of the "local" action code inside the "class" name space (not exactly private, but contained within a namespace and scope).

I have never really liked GUI IDEs or anything like that, They tend to be too constrained, unnecessarily complicated, always missing some functionality (or the functionality was hard to find -- eg hiding is some random menu or hiding as some silly icon that I don't know what it means -- I am fluent in *English*, not some bastardisation of ancient Egyptian), insisted on unnecissiarly
colorful syntax highlighting, and I really don't need or want random coding "suggestions" thrown at me.

Thanks!
Bob L.

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

Robert,
Your post made me chuckle as I have
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl


Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> posted:

At Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:06:17 GMT Bob Liesenfeld <user21406@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:

Hi again,
Still working on getting back up to speed with tcl. I have been looking around
for a GUI builder that works well with tcl\tk. I have found some that I used years ago
(Visual Tcl, GUIBuilder) etc. but am still looking for one that makes sense to me.
Any suggestions?

There was this one I used years (decades) ago, but I eventually found that I could create mega-widgets (using snit) faster and much more to my liking, just
using a text editor. The downside of the GUI builder I used was that while I could build a reasonably GUI, I still had to code in all of the "action" code.
And there was all sorts of "global" variable and naming issues (since everything was in the global name space, etc. With SNIT I could do things like
create re-usable megawidgets, keep all of the "local" action code inside the "class" name space (not exactly private, but contained within a namespace and scope).

I have never really liked GUI IDEs or anything like that, They tend to be too constrained, unnecessarily complicated, always missing some functionality (or the functionality was hard to find -- eg hiding is some random menu or hiding as some silly icon that I don't know what it means -- I am fluent in *English*, not some bastardisation of ancient Egyptian), insisted on unnecissiarly
colorful syntax highlighting, and I really don't need or want random coding "suggestions" thrown at me.

Thanks!
Bob L.

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

Robert,
Sorry my computer decided it was time to send that last post because I moved my hand
over the mouse pad or some such innocuous event.
Gosh I despise how technology has gotten to the "nanny point" where >it< decides.
But that is another rant.................your post did make me chuckle as I know exactly what you mean about
the litany of code that supports the GUI while adding the code that does the work is a head scratcher.
I was hoping maybe things had changed a bit from 30 years ago, but maybe not.
Anyway I better get this post off before pressing the backspace button to get rid of a typo decides it is really
a "shortcut" to formatting the drive..........(do drives still get formatted???).
Bob L.

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl

On 7/28/2026 6:31 PM, Bob Liesenfeld wrote:

I was hoping maybe things had changed a bit from 30 years ago, but maybe not.

Hi Bob.

I used to use visual tcl back in the day. I found it quite quirky. Today, if you read any of my posts, you'll likely know what I'm going to suggest.

If I wanted to build a kind of complex gui, I'd draw a sketch on paper, label things, take a quick snapshot, and you guessed it, paste the picture into Claude (or your favorite AI). Then say, I want a tcl/tk gui program that will look like this.

Sometimes it's easier in words, like, give me a 4x4 matrix of sliders, and use labels for the assoc vars, xray01 to xray16 or some such. put them in a grid.

Or perhaps it's a window with tabs. Ask what package or command he knows best.

Yes, things have changed in 30 years.

-E


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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl


et99 <et99@rocketship1.me> posted:

On 7/28/2026 6:31 PM, Bob Liesenfeld wrote:

I was hoping maybe things had changed a bit from 30 years ago, but maybe not.

Hi Bob.

I used to use visual tcl back in the day. I found it quite quirky. Today, if you read any of my posts, you'll likely know what I'm going to suggest.

If I wanted to build a kind of complex gui, I'd draw a sketch on paper, label things, take a quick snapshot, and you guessed it, paste the picture into Claude (or your favorite AI). Then say, I want a tcl/tk gui program that will look like this.

Sometimes it's easier in words, like, give me a 4x4 matrix of sliders, and use labels for the assoc vars, xray01 to xray16 or some such. put them in a grid.

Or perhaps it's a window with tabs. Ask what package or command he knows best.

Yes, things have changed in 30 years.

-E

-E,
That is a really good suggestion........I have found that the various AI engines do a passable job of suggesting tcl code.
I'll give it a try!
Bob L

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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl


Bob Liesenfeld <user21406@newsgrouper.org.invalid> posted:

Hi again,
Still working on getting back up to speed with tcl. I have been looking around
for a GUI builder that works well with tcl\tk. I have found some that I used years ago
(Visual Tcl, GUIBuilder) etc. but am still looking for one that makes sense to me.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Bob L.

Visual Tcl was really good but was more quirky whan the maintener changed.
You have TkProE (https://sourceforge.net/projects/tkproe/
or https://tkproe.dengensys.com ) where icons will
sound familiar. It is more "manual" than Visual Tcl and more complex to use. But the author is the same as the author of Freewrap, so I guess there is a mecanism
to make executable with Freewrap .

There was also a nice little tool in the time of Scriptics but I forgot
the name ( not a useful tip :-D )

But just as Robert, in the end I went simply to Notepad++ because all of them export the built gui in a specific format. For complex interface if comes an error
when loading your piece of software in the Gui builder, it may be extremely difficult to debug this error if it comes from a bug in the builder.

Olivier.
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl

On 29/07/2026 00:06, Bob Liesenfeld wrote:

Hi again,
Still working on getting back up to speed with tcl. I have been looking around
for a GUI builder that works well with tcl\tk. I have found some that I used years ago
(Visual Tcl, GUIBuilder) etc. but am still looking for one that makes sense to me.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Bob L.

Like many others, I don't use a GUI builder. Full disclosure - I've
never tried one.

When I was starting up with Tcl/Tk, I really struggled with menus, so I defined an App class, using snit, that took a set of Menu name/Menu
entry pairs and built me a toplevel widget with a menubar providing the
menus and entries that I passed in. When the user selects one of the
entries, a proc with a predefined name (on<Menu name><Menu entry>) is
called. Then I added a few "standard" menu names and entries and after a
while it became so ingrained that I can't do anything without requiring
my App package.

The other thing I got bored with was setting things up using the [grid] geometry manager, so my App class provides a mechanism that accepts a
list of "items" and lays them out in a grid.

After a few years I made a TclOO class to wrap App and add a little
extra functionality.

Literally 19 years later there are many things about this framework that
I wish I'd done differently but I have Lord knows how many tens of KLOC
that use it, and I can't half develop a reasonable GUI with a standard look-and-feel quickly.

To my mind, the key is reusability.

Good luck and happy GUI coding.


Alan
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl

At Wed, 29 Jul 2026 19:03:06 +0100 Alan Grunwald <nospam.nurdglaw@gmail.com> wrote:

On 29/07/2026 00:06, Bob Liesenfeld wrote:

Hi again,
Still working on getting back up to speed with tcl. I have been looking around
for a GUI builder that works well with tcl\tk. I have found some that I used years ago
(Visual Tcl, GUIBuilder) etc. but am still looking for one that makes sense to me.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Bob L.

Like many others, I don't use a GUI builder. Full disclosure - I've
never tried one.

GUI builders are probably more useful (necessary?) with *compiled* languages (C. C++. Java, etc.) because of the time and "code completeness" issues a compiled language requires. With Tcl/Tk, one can create a GUI literally interactively (eg just by firing up wish from the command line and just starting to type in widget creation function) and can lay out the complete GUI without any underlying "action" code. You can't do anything like that in any other system.

When I was starting up with Tcl/Tk, I really struggled with menus, so I defined an App class, using snit, that took a set of Menu name/Menu
entry pairs and built me a toplevel widget with a menubar providing the
menus and entries that I passed in. When the user selects one of the
entries, a proc with a predefined name (on<Menu name><Menu entry>) is
called. Then I added a few "standard" menu names and entries and after a while it became so ingrained that I can't do anything without requiring
my App package.

Yeah, I don't something similar and have developed a pile of classes and templates/frameworks for Tcl/Tk applications.

The other thing I got bored with was setting things up using the [grid] geometry manager, so my App class provides a mechanism that accepts a
list of "items" and lays them out in a grid.

After a few years I made a TclOO class to wrap App and add a little
extra functionality.

Literally 19 years later there are many things about this framework that
I wish I'd done differently but I have Lord knows how many tens of KLOC
that use it, and I can't half develop a reasonable GUI with a standard look-and-feel quickly.

To my mind, the key is reusability.

Good luck and happy GUI coding.

Alan

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.tcl


Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com> posted:

At Wed, 29 Jul 2026 19:03:06 +0100 Alan Grunwald <nospam.nurdglaw@gmail.com> wrote:

On 29/07/2026 00:06, Bob Liesenfeld wrote:

Hi again,
Still working on getting back up to speed with tcl. I have been looking around
for a GUI builder that works well with tcl\tk. I have found some that I used years ago
(Visual Tcl, GUIBuilder) etc. but am still looking for one that makes sense to me.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Bob L.

Like many others, I don't use a GUI builder. Full disclosure - I've
never tried one.

GUI builders are probably more useful (necessary?) with *compiled* languages (C. C++. Java, etc.) because of the time and "code completeness" issues a compiled language requires. With Tcl/Tk, one can create a GUI literally interactively (eg just by firing up wish from the command line and just starting to type in widget creation function) and can lay out the complete GUI
without any underlying "action" code. You can't do anything like that in any other system.

When I was starting up with Tcl/Tk, I really struggled with menus, so I defined an App class, using snit, that took a set of Menu name/Menu
entry pairs and built me a toplevel widget with a menubar providing the menus and entries that I passed in. When the user selects one of the entries, a proc with a predefined name (on<Menu name><Menu entry>) is called. Then I added a few "standard" menu names and entries and after a while it became so ingrained that I can't do anything without requiring
my App package.

Yeah, I don't something similar and have developed a pile of classes and templates/frameworks for Tcl/Tk applications.

The other thing I got bored with was setting things up using the [grid] geometry manager, so my App class provides a mechanism that accepts a
list of "items" and lays them out in a grid.

After a few years I made a TclOO class to wrap App and add a little
extra functionality.

Literally 19 years later there are many things about this framework that
I wish I'd done differently but I have Lord knows how many tens of KLOC that use it, and I can't half develop a reasonable GUI with a standard look-and-feel quickly.

To my mind, the key is reusability.

Good luck and happy GUI coding.

Alan

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services heller@deepsoft.com -- Webhosting Services

All,
Lots of good answers here. Indeed, building up a GUI from wish. Starting to get the mindset back on working with
interpreters again :-)
Bob
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