**Tcl 8.6 Wish List** ''See TIP 311 [http://tip.tcl.tk/311] for a document meant to be more of a plan, and less of a mere collection of [WIBNI]s.'' - '''[DGP]''' This list is much more concrete than the [Tcl 9.0 WishList], the wishes being more that '''someone should undertake the listed task'''s than that someone should figure out how to do ''X''. Also the wish might be directed more from [TCT] to the community at large (''please assist us with getting this done'') than the other way around. [[the tct is an administrative body - in general, the help provided would be in terms of guiding discussion as to whether such a thing should happen, then helping get the [TIP] written and submitted... There is, however, the tcl maintainers, whose role is more along the lines of software maintenance of the existing code...]] ''Really 8.5 too if someone does it!'' * Expanded tutorial/docs on [ttk] ''Tcl'' * [TDBC] * Compressing/uncompressing channels and built-in [ZIP] [VFS] support * [regexp] maintainer (I would love to see more work done to improve, modernize and add feature to regexp) * [PCRE] regexp implementation [https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=1860727&group_id=10894&atid=310894] * [TclOO] ready for the core * TIP #285 (script cancellation via Tcl_CancelEval and [interp cancel]) * Support for [complex number]s and decimal numbers ([AM] I could not resist adding these two - it seems to me right that would be best done via two separate commands) - [AM] See below (after a night's sleep) * [try ... finally ...] (or something like [TIP]#89[http://tip.tcl.tk/89]) * [Unicode] beyond \uFFFF. * Asynchronous name resolution for [socket] * Adopt [TclParser] somehow, so that we can all get parse trees for scripts ''Tk'' * [PNG] [image] support [http://tip.tcl.tk/244] * [Fixing Tk_Uid Leaks] * [winfo] workarea (Something like [twapi]'s get_desktop_workarea for all platforms (From twapi help: The workarea is that area that is not covered by the taskbar and any application desktop toolbars.)) * Run error messages through [msgcat] * Better image processing for [photo] * Standard 'Resize' event. * Canvas support for image photo "stippling" in addition to the bitmap image type. ie: image equivalents for -stipple bitmap, -activestipple bitmap and -disabledstipple bitmap, etc. ''Outside the core'' * Batteries included release! * TkWeb (compile Tk code to webpages instead of regular forms, also possibly make it Volta-ish[http://labs.live.com/volta/]) ---- **Commentary** [DKF]: BI releases depend on other people to put them together. [ActiveTcl]'s an instance of this, and both [tclkit] and [eTcl] are others. But the core bits aren't likely to be done as a BI release directly since that makes things take longer as well as being more difficult for people who want stripped-down releases. The TkWeb idea is neat, but vanishingly unlikely to happen without contributed code. [Twylite]: I'd really like to see TIP #89 (Try/Catch Exception Handling in the Core) finalised and completed. Once the syntax is agreed upon I'm pretty sure it should be possible to have a pure-Tcl implementation (backwards compatible to 8.5 and 8.4) done quite quickly, leaving some time for a C implementation before the alphas/betas. On the BI side, a lot is possible with a small alternative to the shell/application code and built-in ZIP VFS support; perhaps the latter can be prioritised? [AM]: My idea of supporting complex numbers and decimal numbers can be reduced to something simpler: add a command to convert an expression like "1+exp($a/$b)*$x" to "+ 1 [[* [[exp [[/ $a $b]]]] $x]]". A (scripted or compiled) extension dealing with complex numbers, or arrays of numbers, if you like, can then simply implement procedures +, exp, * suitable for the "number" system and evaluate the resultant command. [LV]: Donal, is it safe to say that just because something is on the wish list does not guarantee that feature will make it into 8.6? Traditionally, Tcl hasn't had a ''development team'' working on new features. That hasn't changed, right? Normally, if someone wants to see particular new features appear in a version, it would behoove them to participate either contributing time, money, encouragement, bribes, etc. [DKF]: Correct. Contributions to make things happen (code/patches are best) ''will'' improve the chances, and all the wishes here by me are done with at least a fair chunk of "user of Tcl" perspective. And I bet that [zlib] support gets done; too many other things depend on it. [LV]: Of the above list, the entry least likely to occur in Tcl 8.6 is the '''batteries included''' one, IMO. I suspect the tkweb one is another one that is too ambitious. [DKF]: Hmm, I'd say that we're marginally more likely to do a BI release than tkweb-in-the-core. <
> Also, improved documentation for [ttk] is not something that needs to wait for 8.6 at all. ---- [DKF]: There ''is'' a standard resize event. It's called '''''', and it's been in Tk since the beginning. [peterc]: Yes and no. A resize will trigger a event, but, not all events are resizes. At the moment, the programmer needs to run up their own code to keep track of the size of the window manually and compare it to the current size to determine if this is resize related or has been caused by something else. A quick search [http://groups.google.com.au/groups?q=tcl%20resize%20event&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wg] on Google Groups alone shows how many people ask about this. The nice thing about a event would be that adding it wouldn't break any old code still using methods. [DKF]: Not really. Officially, there are three things that you can get a for. 1. A resize 2. A reposition w.r.t. the parent widget (or the root, if a [toplevel]) 3. A change of certain other settings (e.g. X border) that Tk doesn't use. The overhead of getting resizes and repositions mixed up isn't a problem in my experience. In what way does yours vary? ---- **See Also** * [Tcl 9.0 WishList] ---- !!!!!! %| [Category Suggestions] |% !!!!!!