Purpose: to cover the use of Tcl under the variations of Microsoft Windows that continues to grow at an alarming rate.
See the latest FAQ [L1 ] for information being maintained by the comp.lang.tcl Windows and Tcl FAQ maintainer. Note that this version is different than the one posted to comp.lang.tcl - there has been some problems trying to get the autoposting software version updated :-( ...
See Microsoft Windows and Tk for information about the graphical extension and Windows.
Also, the Tcl Developers Xchange [L2 ] hosts a surprisingly (well, it surprises CL) active Web forum on Win* issues [L3 ]
Other info will be added as people encounter it.
For instance, Tcl runs on Windows 95/98/Windows NT, Windows 2000, and soon Windows/CE.
A frequent problem in DOS/Windows vs. C/Tcl is the use of backslashes as path separators. Tcl parses c:\test to have a Tab (\t) as third character, with "est" following that. Since strings may get parsed several times, the safest is to use slashes internally. You can get that canonical form from a backslashed pathname with
set canonicalpathname [file join $backslashedpathname]
Going back to backslashes may be necessary for exec:
set backslashedpathname [file nativename $canonicalpathname];#RS
On Windows I have a third party application (the dvi previewer Yap.exe) which can tell another application to go to a particular file and source line. Unfortunately it can't use dde (at least not directly) but can only execute a command line, so it wants to do something like this (it lets you design the command line):
app.exe open %f -line %l
where '%f' will be substitued by the file, and %l by the line. Now, I have a Tcl/Tk application already running, which wants that information. How can I get it to my application in the easiest way??
A recent question and answer from comp.lang.tcl asks:
What options are available for printing from a TCL (not TK) script running under Windows (NT/9x/2000)? (See also Printing a canvas under Windows.)
One way is to just open and write directly to a device like LPT1.
set pr [open lpt1 w]
If the printer isn't attached to the local PC, you will need to capture the device to the network queue. One way to do this is with a command-line like:
net use lpt1 \\server\printer /persistent:yes
A topic that's sure to come up more and more often is "What WinForms has to do with Tcl".
A frequent, sometimes implicit, topic is "How Tcl accesses the Win32 API". Also important for getting the right Windows feel is to "Register file types under Windows".
See also serial ports on Windows, Services under Microsoft Windows NT, Windows shell links, Windows wish console, Windows Registry Browser, Windows: getting desktop properties, Windows file finder, Wikit Command Line for Windows95,
Windows specific Tcl commands - Arts and crafts of Tcl-Tk programming