Purpose: discuss the various Tk/Tcl Integrated Development Environments (i.e. IDE) available at this time. ---- Sometimes people offer as components/candidates programs such as: * [Albacore] * [Alphatk] for the MacOS * [ased] - I quite like [ASED], as an IDE for smaller projects, where [Source Navigator] is a bit over the top. NEM. * [Babel] * [C-Forge] * [CrowTDE] - Tcl/Tk Development Environment * [Eclipse] - while initially developed as a Java IDE, there have been projects adding support for C/C++/Tcl/Perl, etc. * [Elixir] * [Emacs] - (Editor & kitchen sink) is quite useful editor - and, for that matter, has within its community lots of components that, if loaded together, probably add up to much of what one thinks of as an IDE. Those who don't like it may find [ViM] very practical (well, at least in *nix world). It doesn't have nearly the IDE features of EMACS, however. * [Kdevelop] - KDE IDE * [Komodo] - IDE by ActiveState * [Myrmeco] * [Pro-X] * [PVM] * [Quick-Tk] * [RamDebugger] is a pretty complete IDE, at first sight. Editing with syntax coloring; Debugging with breakpoints, variable watches, step over/step into. Even debugging of c++ code. I haven't used it yet, but it does look promising. * [ScriptIt!] * [Sepp] * [Source Navigator] * [Tcl Developer Studio] * [Tcl/Tk Project Manager] * [TclTalk] - Have a conversation with the interpreter. * [TIDE] * [Tiny Tcl/Tk IDE] * [tkBuilder] * [TKproE] * [Tloona] * [Tycho] * [ViM] - Editor * [Visual Tcl] * [XF] * [XotclIDE] ---- [[Consolidate with material referenced as "[GUI Building Tools]".]] ---- Some people mention [TclPro], but TclPro is NOT an IDE. At least not by the criteria listed as [what features would be useful in a Tcl IDE]. It does not have an integrated editor. In fact, TclPro is a set of non-integrated tools. The TclPro debugger is a GUI-based, debug-only environment... However, Komodo, historically considered a descendant of TclPro (though I suspect little or no code in common) is a ''proper'' IDE. ---- Some have referred to [VisualGipsy] as an IDE - but its description seems less an IDE and more a layout application. I don't know if it is still available. ---- If you have used IDEs for other languages, you likely come to Tcl/Tk development with a set of expectations. Use [coming to Tcl/Tk from an IDE environment] to discuss the difficulties and needs you have. ---- See also [GUI Building Tools] - [IDE: from cathedral to patchwork bazaar] ---- ''[escargo] 28 Mar 2006'' - I was interested to see that several of the [Python] IDE projects are getting together to try to combine and consolidate their work, and remove duplication: http://pyxides.stani.be/ Whether such a thing is practical or desirable for [Tcl] and [Tk] as well would be its own discussion. It seems like those people who venture off and create their own editors or IDEs are doing because of perceived gap in the functions of the IDEs that are already available. (Although some might be doing it purely as a learning experience.) Any new tool needs to offer enough advantages that the effort of learning a new tool and discarding old tools is worth the investment. There's got to be a substantial reason to switch. I've been thinking that something that an IDE or a [Notebook App] or [Personal Wikis] combined a feature like [FIT] might be worth doing. ''[tb] 12 Jun 2007'' - People come to Tcl/Tk from different places with different preferences of workflow and code management. If they come here, look around and get a list of [IDE]s along with a short description, they can easily decide which one to go with. In contrast, to create a ''"OneAndOnlyIDE"'' for Tcl/Tk would always have to formalize things like code/documentation management, exchange and deployment. Although this has advantages, it would give Tcl/Tk only one face of many. ''[escargo]'' - I recognize that one size does not fit all, but on the other hand, reinventing the wheel is often a waste of effort. To me it makes some sense to have a framework where different functions can be added on in a modular fashion so the whole assembly becomes more useful than in a bunch of separate, disparate tools that never get enough effort to be truly useful. ---- [A do-it-yourself IDE with the text widget] ---- [Category Acronym] | [Category Dev. Tools] | [Category Discussion]