XF: An interface builder for Tcl/Tk

What is XF ?
------------
XF allows you to interactively build and modify a user
interface based upon the Tcl/Tk package. You will need the
Tcl/TK package to run XF. The output generated by XF is a
Tcl/Tk script that can be executed with wish or any other
Tcl/Tk interpreter.

The idea for XF was born when I got my fingers on BYO. You
will find that some basic concepts of BYO have been taken
for XF, but there are a lot of changed/additional
concepts/features:

XF features:
          - Windows 95 and Windows NT support
          - image support
	  - provides partial support for TK 4.0 (special
            thanks to Bill Swartz bills@twolf.com who
            sent me the patch).
	  - editing "on the fly". XF is running as a
	    part of the application (not in an external
	    wish),
	  - editing of existing Tcl/Tk programs,
	  - placing and sizing of widgets by direct
	    manipulation (what I call direct manipulation :-),
	  - full access to all widget attributes,
	  - cut and paste functionality,
	  - provides the access to "templates" (pieces
	    of interface elements and procedures that
            can be inserted in your program),
	  - integrates your preferred editor (emacs :-),
	  - integrates version control for procedures,
	  - a help system (you should really use it if
            you get frustrated :-),
	  - interactive tutorial,
	  - support for xygraph, hypertext and photo,
	  - allows the fast and flexible integration of
	    new widget types (contact me if you have an
	    interesting widget and want to integrate it
	    into XF),
	  - creation of widget structures via procedures,
	  - modularization of the output script,
	  - setting of resources for widget groups,
	  - autosaving,
	  - and much more to be discovered....

Running under Windows:
----------------------
Thanks to Dennis LaBelle and J L Hamel who both (separately)
provided me with the neccessary changes to make XF running
under Windows (ohh BTW Windows is a registered Trademark of
Microsoft... or something like that... now that we enter the
Microsoft world we have to be more carefull about stuff like
that).

Using image support:
--------------------
Image support thanks to the great work of Mac Cody!

How to use it.
First use the XF images dialog box to create one or more images.  Try
using the images and bitmaps in the Tk 4.0 demos directory.  Then
enter in a image name in a button widget.  Think of the image's name
as a handle to the image.  In fact you can display the same image in
several widgets at the same time.  See Welch's book, page 243-244.

The image support is generalized so new image types are detected whenever the
image dialog box is opened.  It's not as flashy as the Photo widget
dialog box that Sven Delmas wrote but, the generality of the image box
allows support for any new image type without adding more code.

Using images in Tk4.0 is a two-step process: 1) create the images 
(that's what the "Images" dialog under Misc on the XF menubar is for) 
and 2) selecting the images used in each widget (that's what the new 
image entries are for in the widget dialogs).  If you have Welch's 
Tcl/Tk book, look at the examples listed.  Images are not widgets in
and of themselves.  They are always embedded in a widget.

Requirements:
-------------
This program is written for Tk 4.x.

The manual page was written for groff. With another troff, I
got terrible output, but that was probably an exotic one
:-).

Installation:
-------------
Please unpack the XF distribution inside the directory where
XF should be "officially" located (e.g. /usr/local/lib).
The compressed tar file contains a directory tree named
"xf/...". The installation procedure will not copy the XF
files to another location. When the distribution is
unpacked, you have to configure the Makefile. The Makefile
contains some file and path names that must correspond to
your system. You only have to adapt the Makefile at the top
of the distribution directory tree. For a detailed
description of the installation take a look at the file
INSTALL.

Availability:
-------------
XF is available via anonymous ftp at:
	ftp.neosoft.com:	pub/tcl/NEW/xf*.tar.gz
	ftp.ibp.fr:		pub/tcl/contrib/code/xf*.tar.gz
	nic.funet.fi:		pub/languages/tcl/code/xf*.tar.gz
        syd.dit.csiro.au:       pub/tk/contrib/code/xf*.tar.gz
	ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de:	pub/tcl/contrib/code/xf*.tar.gz

It is also available at the following WWW pages:
	http://www.dfw.net/~mcody
	http://www.cimetrix.com/sven

Please look for patchfiles beyond the archives patchlevel!!

To get a copy of it, just type the following:

	ftp ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de
        bin
	cd pub/tcl/contrib/code
	get xf4.0.tar.gz

To get a copy via ftpmail, just send the following mail to:

      	mail-server@cs.tu-berlin.de

To get a help message, send the following body:

	send HELP
	end

To retrieve xf, send the following body:

        send pub/tcl/contrib/code/xf4.0.tar.gz
        end


Mailing list:
-------------
There exist two mailing lists for XF. Take a look at the
file MAILLIST in the XF source directory.

Feedback (Author):
------------------
Sven Delmas
sven@cimetrix.com