Re: Visual Tcl/Tk

[Ray <rehenry-at-up.net>]

Bill 

The big problem with Vtcl is that it can't recognize or relate to the extra
commands that are defined in emcsh and iosh.  Here's what I did to get
tkemc loaded into vTcl.  There may be better ways!!!

1 - make a copy of a working emc distribution.  This doesn't have to run
a machine but it does have to start up.  Steppermod connected to an
open parport works for me.

2 - Untar the vTcl distribution into the emc directory of the above copy
of the emc.

3 - Edit the vtcl file that shows up in emc.  You will need to use
absolute file references.  (from root)

-----my vtcl file-----
#!/bin/sh

PATH_TO_WISH=/usr/local/nistvtcl/emc/plat/nonrealtime/bin/emcsh
VTCL_HOME=/usr/local/nistvtcl/emc

export PATH_TO_WISH
export VTCL_HOME

exec ${PATH_TO_WISH} ${VTCL_HOME}/vt.tcl
-----end-----

4. - Make a copy of plat/nonrealtime/bin/tkemc in the same directory and
name it tkemc.tcl

5a - Edit tkemc.tcl and replace all of the [source] relative references
with absolute references.  In my case, they were 

plat/linux_2_2_14/bin/* 
/usr/local/nistvtcl/emc/plat/nonrealtime/bin/*

and there were about 7 of these.

5b - There was also one command -- set files [exec /bin/ls $scriptdir]
that I had to replace with the absolute reference to the emc/tcl/scripts
directory.

6 - Now start up emc in the new temp directory and make sure it shows the
gui.  You don't need to take it out of estop.

7 - Start up vtcl in a terminal window from the same directory.  ./vtcl

8 - Select open, plat/nonrealtime/bin/tkemc.tcl, from the file menu.

9 - Select Widget Tree from the Window menu and you should see all the
relationships.

10 - Grab a large mug of your favorite and have at the project.

11 - I didn't try to run the result or run vtcl in test mode.  My guess is
that you would need to test your editing by copying over tkemc.tcl to
tkemc and then restart the emc.

BTW - I get some kind of error about updateProcess when I shut vTcl down
but I didn't look to see what effect it would have.

Good luck and hope this helps.  Let us know your progress.

Ray


On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Bill wrote:
> 
> Ray,
> 
> I just installed Visual Tcl/Tk on a linux machine and was wondering if it
> was
> possible to load TkEMC into it and make a few changes. I just want to move
> a few buttons around and possibly add a scrollbar and listbox where the
> G-Code program is loaded at the bottom of the screen. Mostly I'm just
> experimenting now, as I have an LCD screen, that in the future, I would like
> to
> integrate into a control panel to run EMC. Problem is it only does 640 X
> 480.
> I know about changing the font sizes and colors for this but I would like to
> arrange it a little differently. Not that there's anything wrong with your
> version, Ray :)
> 
> Tried loading the TkEmc file into Visual Tcl/Tk without much luck.
> Aslo created a symbolic link from wish to emcsh as I read 
> somewhere that emcsh takes the place of wish. No help.