Version 48 of tkhtml

Updated 2004-11-29 15:07:54

http://www.hwaci.com/sw/tkhtml/ is the home page for one of the Tk HTML widgets that renders HTML into formatted text with hyperlinks. It is a compiled extension.

It appears that Tkhtml depends on Tk 8.0-8.3 . Pointers to modifications for Tk 8.4 or newer would be appreciated.


It does work with Tk 8.4 (recent CVS sources), with non-threaded build. But with threaded build I'm encountering misterious segfaults. Victor Wagner ---

The author writes, on the tkhtml mailing list, that he is working on making the tkhtml cvs accessible as well as setting up a new web site about tkhtml.


Does tkhtml only do HTML rendering, or is there actual code for acting as a WWW client in the widget? I can't tell from the web site.

Only rendering - see below for www clients created using tkHTML.

During late 2003, the author of tkhtml wrote on the tkhtml mailing list:

 > I've seen recent postings to news:comp.lang.tcl about people having all
 > sorts of bug fixes and enhancements for this widget and now this week
 > we see some uploaded files here for the widget.
 > 
 > Has anyone contacted the original author to see if there would be interest
 > in creating an sf.net project, getting tkhtml source into it, then letting
 > people loose to start fixing and upgrading it?

 Anybody who wants to undertake the task of starting a sf.net project
 for tkhtml has my blessing.

 Or if sf.net is too slow for you, I can put the code on the [CVS] server
 at www.sqlite.org and turn folks loose on it there.

See http://www.sqlite.org/ (or [L1 ]; also, Victor Wagner has a recent image [L2 ] of the sources) for the cvs server machine mentioned.


Note that TkHTML uses LGPL.

2003-11-13 - In late 2002 D. Richard Hipp released the files that he wrote to the public domain. The remaining LGPLed file htmlexts.c was written by Peter MacDonald, and he has indicated that this will be re-licensed in the next release. (New release with some simple CSS support still a few months off at least apparently)

Thanks to both of them for the great work and for releasing it with a license compatible with the Tcl/Tk core! Hopefully we'll see TkHTML included in the Tk distribution some time. (others have mentioned that this is on the cards..)


Kitten, a compilation of extensions for the Tclkit user, includes compiled versions of tkhtml for Linux, Solaris, and Windows.

The ActiveTcl Batteries included distribution includes tkhtml [L3 ].


TkHTML is one of the numerous packages in the Tcl community which has its own pecular build requirements. Be certain to read carefully the COMPILE.txt instructions - and take their instructions literally ! You do NOT just do a compile; make ; make install on this package!

  1. You have to build in a directory OTHER than in the source directory.
  2. You have to be in that directory, and then invoke the source directory's configure
  3. You MUST specify the --with-tcl and --with-tk flags, pointing to the source tree
  4. You may very well have to modify the Makefile to do things like add -R flags, flags for locating the libraries for sockets, etc.

Neil Madden has provided a neat little 5 line .sig that points one to this wiki - see the code at Simple Tkhtml web page displayer.


Detlef Groth has written a snit::widget wrapper for the tkhtml widget called snitbrowser.


kroc has written a Help.kit with Tkhtml.


TkHTML shares its code base with BrowseX; the latter uses TkHTML, and Peter MacDonald regularly updates the TkHTML CVS repository.


LV We should determine which tkhtml cvs repository Peter MacDonald is updating regularly and mention that here.


A mailing list for discussing D. Richard Hipp's Tk widget for rendering HTML - see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tkhtml/ for the subscription info, mail archives, and even files of updates and enhancements like a snit wrapper!


 What: Hipp miscellaneous widgets
 Where: http://www.hwaci.com/sw/
    http://tkhtml.hwaci.com/
 Description: Author has a variety of software available.
        A Tree and Notebook widget written in pure Tcl/Tk code is available.
        Also there is a new tk_messageBox which uses color icons
        and tkhtml, an HTML widget for Tcl/Tk.
        There is a DLL for the TkHTML widget built using the Tcl 8.x
        Stub library, as well as a shared library for RedHat Linux 6.0.
        Support continues to improve - support for table, script and
        applet tags recently added.
        Note that the TkHTML widget is distributed as GPL.
 Updated: 11/2004
 Contact: mailto:[email protected] (D. Richard Hipp)

 What: Scout
 Where: http://www.sanmay.freeserve.co.uk/
 Description: WWW browser which uses tkhtml .
 Updated: 08/2001
 Contact: mailto:[email protected]

 What: Tixapps
 Where: http://tix.sourceforge.net/Tixapps/
 Description: Suite of development applications that run with
        Tcl/Tk/Tix or Python/Tkinter/Tix.  Includes an inspector,
        debugger and GNU texinfo browser.
        The code includes Python wrappers for TkHTML and TkTable.
        Currently at version 1.6 .
 Updated: 06/2002
 Contact: See web site.

 What: VAD (Visual Ada Developer)
 Where: http://www.websamba.com/ldulman/vad.htm
 Description: Tcl/Tk oriented Ada-95 GUI builder, portable to different
        platforms such as Windows, unix, MacOS, and OS/2 .  You can use
        it as an IDE for any Ada-95 (C, C++, Tcl) project.
        Uses GNAT, TASH, RAPID, Tcl/Tk 8.x, Img, icons, Help System,
         TkPaint, BWidgets, mcListBox, mComboBox, Tktable, ftp_library, csh,
         snack, BLT, itcl, Tix, QuickTimeTcl, XanimTcl, Tcl-gtk, Oratcl,
         XBit, Tkogl, tom, Vtktcl, Tkhtml, Fve, August, ASED, TclDOM, Tclxml
         Whiteboard, TkMC, tkxmlive, IDL_To_Ada.
        Currently at version 6.0 .
 Updated: 08/2002
 Contact: See web site

 What: WebSamba package repository
 Where: http://www.websamba.com/tcltk
 Description: A variety of packages for Tcl/Tk 8.4a3, working with
        Windows and RedHat 7.1.  Includes BLT, Snack, Tix, COST,
        TclX, Tktable, Img, Tkhtml, itcl, and TkOgl.
 Updated: 10/2001
 Contact: mailto:[email protected] ) (Leonid Dulman)

 What: browser
 Where: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tkbrowser
 Description: A wrapper around TkHTML with default bindings and functionality
        to create simple web browsing widgets.
        Currently at version 0.1 .
 Updated: 03/2002
 Contact: mailto:[email protected] (Neil Madden)

NEM: Note that the above code hasn't been touched for a while. I did spend quite a lot of time improving this, but apparently I neglected to upload the changes to sourceforge. I have no idea where the newer code is now (probably lost). Somebody created a snit wrapper on this wiki which has approximately the same functionality as my package, and is probably a better starting point.

 What: kitten
 Where: http://www.equi4.com/pub/tk/examples/
 Description: Kitten is a tclkit collection of Tcl/Tk extensions aimed at
        reducing the work a developer has to do while developing a
        scripted document.  It contains scripting extensions like tcllib and
        BWidgets, as well as Expect, itcl/itk/iwidgets/tkhtml, and others.
        Binary extensions are compiled for Windows, Linux, and Solaris as
        possible.
 Updated: 07/2001
 Contact: See web site.

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