Re: GUI toolkit(s) status

From	Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu>
Subject	Re: GUI toolkit(s) status
Date	2014-11-20 23:34 -0500
References	<5da0e7df-fd85-42b8-abfd-4db0dd9ff519@googlegroups.com> <7xwq6qgty4.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <mailman.16008.1416472839.18130.python-list@python.org> <m4kaqg$p62$1@dont-email.me>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Message-ID	<mailman.16082.1416544509.18130.python-list@python.org> (permalink)

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On 11/20/2014 4:04 AM, Christian Gollwitzer wrote:

> Tcl nor Tk support Unicode outside the BMP. Full Unicode support is a
> big todo item on the wishlist for Tcl 9, for Tk nobody really knows. We
> are lacking manpower and people with specialized knowledge.

Tcl/Tk currently use UCS-2, which only handles BMP chars. Alternatives 
to support astral chars:

UTF-32 (Python's 3.2- wide build): Easy, especially starting from USC-2. 
  The main problem is the memory hit.  However, most tk apps are not 
text heavy, so this seems like a possibility.  Does anyone ever try to 
put a gigabyte text in a Text widget?

UTF-16 (Python's 3.2- narrow build): Easy but buggy when it comes to 
indexing and slicing.

UTF-16+: I posted on the tracker a prototype of how to make indexing 
correct by adding an auxiliary index of non-BMP chars.  It makes 
indexing O(k), where k is the number of astral chars.

UFT-8: Makes indexing O(n).

Python FSR (3.3+ Unicode): Handling variable byte width adds complexity, 
but Python has already implemented this pretty efficiently.  Python is 
open source with a liberal licenc

To me, an important consideration for choosing is what the OSes require 
to put characters on the screen.  Are they all the same?

> Apple is a
> moving target, they pulled the rug from under Tk's feet twice over the
> past 10 years. Nobody knows if Tk will continue to exist on the mac if
> Cocoa is withdrawn some day and replaced by a new and completely
> different windowing framework.

> Python has largely replaced Tcl as the
> first-choice scripting language, and that also does not help to attract
> people working on Tcl/Tk.

A possible solution for Tk is to replace the non-C Tcl parts of TK with 
Python (or the CPython API functions as needed for speed).  I have no 
idea how horrendous a project creating Py/Tk would be.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy

Thread

GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-19 23:59 -0800
  Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-11-20 00:25 -0800
    Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-11-20 19:40 +1100
      Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Christian Gollwitzer <auriocus@gmx.de> - 2014-11-20 10:04 +0100
        Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-11-20 20:17 +1100
        Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2014-11-20 23:34 -0500
          Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-11-20 20:49 -0800
            Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Christian Gollwitzer <auriocus@gmx.de> - 2014-11-21 08:57 +0100
          Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Kevin Walzer <kw@codebykevin.com> - 2014-11-21 09:13 -0500
            Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-22 00:59 -0800
              Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Kevin Walzer <kw@codebykevin.com> - 2014-11-22 12:40 -0500
                Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-22 10:49 -0800
          Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-21 12:38 -0800
            Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-21 12:49 -0800
          Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-22 10:33 -0800
            Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Christian Gollwitzer <auriocus@gmx.de> - 2014-11-22 20:34 +0100
              Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-24 11:24 -0800
        Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Kevin Walzer <kw@codebykevin.com> - 2014-11-21 09:05 -0500
        Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-21 12:15 -0800
        Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2014-11-21 21:07 -0700
          Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Dave Cook <davecook@nowhere.net> - 2014-11-26 09:40 +0000
            Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Mark Summerfield <list@qtrac.plus.com> - 2014-11-26 03:47 -0800
              Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-26 06:36 -0800
                Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-26 07:11 -0800
            Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2014-11-26 20:19 -0700
        Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-22 00:12 -0800
        Re: GUI toolkit(s) status wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2014-11-22 02:46 -0800
        Re: GUI toolkit(s) status Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2014-11-24 08:18 -0700

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