The Tcl/Tk Plugin was designed during the early rage of browser plugins. Jacob Levy was the original implementer. It has been maintained up through v8.0 of Tcl/Tk, for Netscape v3 and up, and Internet Explorer.
IE 5.5 SP2 has removed support for Netscape plugins altogether, meaning that from this version on plugin authors are going to need to devise a seperate delivery mechanism for IE, than for all the rest of the web browsers which support the Netscape model.
An ActiveX plugin was develeoped by Gary Lee and is at http://www.ecosine.com.tw/~garylee/ . Unfortunately, this is very platform specific (Windows only).
A complete manual is maintained at http://purl.org/tcl/home/software/plugin/man/ , and there is continuing community interest in this strong alternative to Java for embedded programming.
http://purl.org/tcl/home/software/plugin/ is an older site that gives download and other links, but the sourceforge address is the preferred location. Bruce Gingery has a tclet for which the primary purpose is displaying its own content in pseudo- multiple menu'd windows, which, in turn, is written dynamically with its embedding web page from a TCL CGI script at http://gtcs.com/cgi-bin/tclet2 .
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Tools/maki/plugin/ is an updated version of the Tcl plugin. Unfortunately, HEASARC has abandoned the plugin because it has gone so long without updates and had a number of instabilities.
http://www.Lehigh.EDU/~sol0/ptk/ppl/ppl.html is a plugin for perl/tk .
Jeffrey Hobbs and others appear to keep source code for the plugin on SourceForge at http://tclplugin.sourceforge.net/ , while Laurent Demailly (and others?) appear to work from the often-unavailable server at http://www.demailly.com/tcl/plugin/ . Neither group appears to be particularly active or single-minded with the plugin. There's reason to believe, though, that both of these homes would welcome active contributors.
There appears to be an unofficial version of the plug-in available at [L1 ], based on version 8.2 with the plus patch etc. applied.
Jeffrey Hobbs has indicated that he has some code changes for the plugin that needs released into the CVS tree.
David Gravereaux has written on comp.lang.tcl that the original plugin thread model differs from the threading model in Tcl and that the plugin's model results in some problems with IE.
Scott Gamon - I was able to install the plugin in Mozilla on Windows. To install the TCL plugin on Windows, a self-installing executable is run. You can download the installer from http://tcl.activestate.com/software/plugin/ . The installer was written years ago, so it doesn't know about modern browsers like IE 5+ and Mozilla. Go ahead and let it try to install the plugin for IE 3.0/4.0. When it is done, IE still won't be able to run the plugin, but that's okay.
To get it working in Mozilla, begin by looking in the IE program directory, usually in C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer. You will find a subdirectory called PLUGINS. Copy the following files to the Mozilla Plugins directory:
nptcl32.dll tcl80.dll tclpip80.dll tclreg80.dll tk80.dll
When you restart Mozilla, you can try out the plugin at http://tcl.activestate.com/software/plugin/applets.html .
BOOK Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk, in the third edition, talks about the plugin.
For all its faults, BOOK Tcl/Tk for Dummies focuses on using the plugin as a programming environment.
BOOK Web TCL Complete includes the plugin as well as does BOOK Tcl/Tk For Programmers.
From the "Tcl/Tk for Programmers" book, find chapters on the Browser Plugin at http://www.Mapfree.com/sbf/tcl/book/select/Html/21.html .
http://www.tcl.tk/ has various pieces of info about the plugin.
The article "Using Active Server Pages with Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0", located at http://www.microsoft.com/iis/Evaluating/Guides/Whitepapers/aspwp.exe , implies that Microsoft will be supporting Tcl plugins for their server.
274. The WebTechniques http://www.webtechniques.com magazine published an article in 1997 on the Tcl Plugin http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/1997/12/junk/
There was, at least at one time, a Tcl/Tk plug-in mailing list called tclplug.
tclplug is a mailing list dedicated to discussing the new Tcl/Tk Netscape plug-in. To join, send email to mailto:[email protected] with the line
subscribe tclplug Firstname Lastname
What: NetMon
Where: http://64.34.162.237/Netmon/netmon.html
Description: Network monitoring software, written in Tcl/Tk
that will run on Windows and Unix. Provides a visual
diagram of your network, with easy device access and full
drawing (and drag / drop) functionality.
A version that runs on a web page, making use of the Tcl Plugin,
is also available.
Available only as binary.
Currently at version 1.1 for Solaris, 1.2 for Linux and 1.21 for
Windows NT.
Updated: 09/2001
Contact: mailto:[email protected]
What: Netscape client Tcl plugin and Tclets
Where: http://tclplugin.sf.net/
http://www.neosoft.com/tcl/ftparchive/sorted/packages-8.0/devel/tclplug2.1b1-unoff.exe ???
http://www.demailly.com/tcl/plugin/
http://home.netscape.com/
ftp://ftp.demailly.com/pub/tclplug20-x86-linux-glibc.tar.gz
http://tcl.activestate.com/download/plugin.html
http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xray/astroe/tako/plugin/
http://www.neosoft.com/tcl/ftparchive/sorted/packages-8.0/devel/tclplug21b1-unoff.exe
Description: A Tcl/Tk plugin for Netscape Navigator 3.x ,
Communicator 4.x and Internet Explorer 3.x is available.
Binaries exist for Solaris 1 and 2 (SPARC and INTEL), Macintosh,
Windows 95 or NT, and Linux. HP-UX and IRIX binaries have been
reportedly sited around the internet.
Some newsgroup postings seem to imply that the plugin has also
been able to be used on the Windows platform with Opera and
theOther browser.
The plugin enables support for Tcl/Tk 8.0 (in 2.0.x) Tclets
embedded in an HTML page to be displayed interactively.
As you read thru the above pages, you will also find
demo pages for 2.0 Tclets which contain demos of
sending email, inline Tclets, pack demo,
javascript features and security policy,
persistence and data sharing, tkconsole, 'version indicator' Tclet,
draggable text demos, engraved text, bezier curve clock, a tcl ruler,
interactive floor plan, calculator, tetris, 15 puzzle,
animated coffee cup, eyes following mouse, ticker tape,
line drawing program, mouse event tracing, oval drawing,
bike gear ratio calculation, biorythms, mortgage calculator,
and card game.
A tutorial and FAQ for the plugin are also available.
TclPlugin 2.0.x, because of its roots in Tk 8.0., provides native
look and feel for Tclets. Several new security policies are provided.
Faster loading of Tclets are now possible. Dynamic loading of
Tcl extensions is now supported, when the plugin uses an external
process to host Tclets. It also supports a console for debugging.
An updated version of the Windows binary plugin provides support for
the latest Netscapes and Internet Explorers, works on Windows 95/98/NT,
based on Tcl/Tk 8.2.1, and h as the plus, dash, and Img patches applied
and supports stub enabled extensions.
Updated: 08/2001
Contact: mailto:[email protected]
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclet (Cox)
Where: http://www.ntlug.org/%7Eccox/impress/
http://www.ntlug.org/archive/tcltk/
http://www.tcltk.com/Tclets/impress/
Description: ImPress allows you to create good quality documents using
vector graphics. Desktop publishing and presentation tool
using Ghostscript.
Available as an application as well as a plugin via the Tcl/Tk plugin.
Also on these pages is a utility called font3d which vectorizes
a Tcl string using a True Type font - which you can then scale,
stretch, rotate, whatever.
Operates on Windows NT, Windows 95, and Unix. Compatible with
Tcl/Tk 7.6, 8.0 and 8.1.
Currently at version 1.1b9 .
Updated: 08/1998
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Chris Cox)
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclet (Hobbs)
Where: http://www.purl.org/net/hobbs/tcl/Tclet/
http://www.purl.org/net/hobbs/tcl/capp/Tclet/
http://www.purl.org/net/hobbs/tcl/Tclet/tetris/hextris.html
Description: Demo to demonstrate choosing colors, based on the
contents of the X rgb.txt file, as well as
hexagonal Tetris variant, based on TkTetris. Supports
auto-pause and multi-player mode.
Requires Tcl/Tk 8.0+ or Tcl Netscape plugin.
Updated: 03/2001
Contact: mailto:[email protected]
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclet demo (POSC)
Where: http://www.posc.org/poscLive/epi_map.html
http://www.posc.org/poscLive/plugin_setup.html
Description: Demo of real time retrieval of database info as well as
Map Generation. Requires you to allow Tclets from POSC to
be trusted on your system. See the setup page for details.
Updated: 09/1999
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Dan R. Schenck)
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclet puzzle (Smith)
Where: http://www.glinx.com/%7Ehclsmith/plugin.html ???
Description: Tclet piece puzzle - Tktiles.
Updated: 03/1997
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Hume Smith)
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclets (Critchlow)
Where: http://www.elf.org/tclplugin/
Description: A mankala game, screen saver animation, maze generator, and
poetry Tclet, as well as a demo of
how to embed your Tclet into a web page with the
aid of a two word tcl source.
Updated: 11/1996
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Roger E. Critchlow Jr.)
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclets (Kempson)
Where: http://public.logica.com/%7Ekempsonc/
Description: A ticker-tape Tclet which depends on the Tcl/Tk plugin.
Supports multiple scrolling messages, in different colors, with
scrolling in four directions, as well as flashing.
Updated:
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Charlie Kempson)
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclets (McLennan and others)
Where: http://www.tcltk.com/Tclets/
http://www.tcltk.com/training/plugin/maxteroids-code.htcl
Description: Site is yet another page of pointers to Tclets around
the web. The ones unique to this site are the Solitaire
and Maxteroids games.
Updated: 06/2000
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (WebNet Technologies)
mailto:[email protected] (Michael J. McLennan)
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclets (NeoSoft)
Where: http://www.neosoft.com/tcl/plugin/demos/default.html
Description: Digital clock, analog clock, modern clock,
variable speed filmstrip player, reversible filmstrip player.
Updated: 09/1996
Contact: mailto:[email protected]
What: Netscape client Tcl Tclets (Yoshida)
Where: http://www.ueda.info.waseda.ac.jp/%7Eyoshida/tcl_tk/
Description: A sample page which identifies that you have
the plugin installed, as well as
a page demoing hello world and a calculator.
Again, the text is all in Kanji.
Updated: 03/1997
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (YOSHIDA Norishige)
What: POW
Where: http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xray/astroe/tako/wasabi.html
http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xray/astroe/tako/maps
http://www.stsci.edu/stsci/meetings/adassVI/brownl.html
Description: X-Y style graphics plotting tools that work stand alone or
with plugin.
Updated: 04/1999
Contact: mailto:[email protected]
What: tktiles
Where: http://www.glinx.com/%7Ehclsmith/plugin.html ???
Description: What X toolkit is complete until a Sam Lloyd 14-15
type puzzle is written in it? Now works as a Tclet as well.
Updated: 09/1999
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Hume Smith)
What: AdabasTcl
Where: http://www.neosoft.com/tcl/ftparchive/sorted/packages-7.6/databases/adabastcl-1.0/adabastcl-1.0.tar.gz
Description: Extension to Tcl that provides access to an ADABASE D database
server. Comes with 4 applications - driving the
database server, interactive SQL queries, setting default attributes
for user keys, and demo-ing picture display from LONG columns.
Requires Tcl 7.5/Tk 4.1 or newer and access to an ADABASE D
database server. Tested with server version 6.1 or 6.2 on SCO V4.2,
DEC Unix 3.2, HP-UX, and SunOS 5.5.1 and on Windows 95 or
Windows NT 4.0. Tcl plugin version 2.0a2 or newer and Tcl 8.0a2
or newer is required to use in tclets.
A perl 5.003 extension is also supported.
Updated: 10/1998
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Christian Krone)
What: Frames based tk_messageBox and tk_optionMenu
Where: From the contact
Description: Contact has a barely working frames based tk_messageBox and
tk_optionMenu widget, for use within the plugin. They are
not ready for real release, but might be useful for play.
Updated: 06/2000
Contact: mailto:[email protected]
What: Snack
Where: http://www.speech.kth.se/snack/
Description: The Snack sound extension adds commands to play and record audio.
Snack supports in-memory sound objects, file based audio, and
streaming audio, with background audio processing. It handles
fileformats such as AIFF, AU, MP3, NIST/Sphere, and WAV.
Snack is extensible; new commands and sound file formats can
be added using the Snack C-library.
Snack also does sound visualization, e.g. waveforms
and spectrograms. The visualization canvas item types update
in real time and can output postscript.
Works with Tcl 8.0.3 and later, as well as is stubs enabled.
Works with the Tcl plug-in.
Platforms: HP-UX, Irix, Linux, Solaris, Windows 95/98/NT.
Currently at version 2.2a1 .
Updated: 05/2001
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Kare Sjolander)
What: tkpiechart
Where: http://jfontain.free.fr/tkpiechart-6.3.tar.gz
Description: Object oriented Tk application to allow one to build pie
charts. Developed with Tk 8.x and the Netscape plug-in 2.0,
on Linux and Windows (and should work in the plugin on other
platforms as well).
Includes stooop, the Tcl source based Object Oriented environment.
Updated: 11/2001
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Jean-Luc Fontaine)
What: Windows NT Extensions Set
Where: http://zazu.maxwell.syr.edu/nt-tcl/
ftp://ftp.maxwell.syr.edu/tcl/tcl82/nt-tcl82.zip
ftp://ftp.maxwell.syr.edu/pub/tcl/stubs/nt-tcl82stubs.zip
http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Espencer/guraldi/gdtcl.html
ftp://ftp.maxwell.syr.edu/pub/tcl/tcl76/ntext-prelim.zip
Description: Extensions specifically for managing x86 Windows NT. The
ntsys extension handles adding, enumerating and deleting users,
local and global groups, retrieving user account info, retrieving,
modifying and setting file and directory permissions.
The ODBC extension provides basic support.
The registry extension is a port of Gordon Chaffee's work in TkNT with
some enhancments.
The gdtcl is a port of gdtcl and gd for doing GIF creation and
manipulation. The gdtcl extension includes a safe entry point and
thus can be used with the Tcl plugin.
tclping provides access to the icmp echo protocol.
shortcut is an extension to create and maintain Windows 95/NT
shortcuts.
The entire package has been built with MSVC++ 5.0.
The author mentions that none of these have been tested with
Windows 95. Some may work - the NT specific ones obviously won't.
Updated: 09/1999
Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Christopher M. Sedore)