Copyright (c) 1995,1996 Nick Ing-Simmons. All rights reserved.
This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, with the exception
of all the files in the pTk sub-directory which have separate terms
derived from those of the orignal Tk4.0 sources. See pTk/license.terms 
for details of this license.

This a re-port of a perl interface to Tk4.0p3 (John Ousterhout's production
release).  This version (Tk400.201) requires perl5.002 or later.

This version is a patch release.

It should build with perl5.002 ... perl5.003_11, it has problems
with 5.003_12 ... 5.003_15.
5.003_16 works but 5.003_17 does not.
Issues with late _xx releases are to do with closures.
I will do my best to make sure perl5.004 works ...

Note particularly : 

* Changed Tk::Menu::AddItems to take an array of items rather than 
  a reference to an array of items - this makes calling it directly a little
  easier *BUT IS INCOMPATIBLE* if it was called directly.

* Configuring an Optionmenu's -options now replaces existing options
  rather than appending.

See Changes for more detail of what is different.

Although this is a production release it should be noted that 
some sub-modules are not as "finished" as others.
The interfaces to Tcl/Tk's "core" widgets Text, Entry, Canvas, Button,
RadioButton, Checkbutton, Scale, Scrollbar, Listbox, Menu, Menubutton are stable.
As are core Bitmap, Photo and Pixmap image types.
The "Composite" or "Mega Widget" interface is also stable but lacking 
in some features.

The less finished parts include:
   - Tk::HTML needs libwww package from CPAN which in turn requires the 
     libnet package. It will eventually be improved as libwww improves.
   - Tk::IO requires the 'IO::' package which was first introduced into
     perl distribution in 5.003_01. It is available in CPAN archive for 
     earlier releases. Tk::IO is likely to change as perl's IO evolves, and with
     tk4.1  changes.
   - Tk::Ghostview postscript previewer is still experimental, I use a
     "Display Postscript" extension which I may release at some point.
   - Tk::Pod should be changed to use new Pod:: module(s) from CPAN.
   - Tk::DragDrop works on Solaris (and SunOS to some extent)
     it should really be based on a standard.
   - Tk::Xlib will evolve further if tk4.1's Win32/Mac ports permit.
   - Most of the Tix stuff only has C code ported, the many of the tcl parts still
     needing converting to perl.
       - HList works reasonably well
       - There is a reasonably complete port of NoteBook and Balloon now.
       - BrowseEntry is a simplified combo-box
       - InputO has not been tested. 
   - There is an intent to add an object oriented interface to Canvas items,
     (existing interface will still work).
   - There are partially completed things like NNTP News reader which 
     may be finished one day.
   - There are point-demo and test scripts in distribution 

See INSTALL for how to build it.

The two Camel/X 'logo' GIFs were produced by :

Grafix, Sussex, UK, +44-1293-886725

For a very reasonable fee. We have rights to distribute them.

There is a USNET newsgroup comp.lang.perl.tk for discussing all 
aspects of perl/Tk.

Unfortunately Nick does not get much chance to read the newsgroup,
and there are significant lags in propoagating news articles, 
so there is also a mailing list. Mail sent to the mailing list 
(eventually) shows up on the news groups so 'lurking' on the 
newsgroup is fine to see everything.

If you are really keen or want to help you may wish to subscribe to the
mailing list.

To do so send mail to majordomo@lists.Stanford.EDU with 'subscribe ptk'
in the body of the message.

e.g. on normal UNIX machine:

echo 'subscribe ptk' | mail majordomo@lists.Stanford.EDU

Please don't send subscribe requests to the list itself.

Sending problems to ptk@lists.Stanford.EDU is the best way 
to get answers.


