[R-SIG-Mac] Re: LimmaGui on Mac OSX (version 10.3.5)

[James Wettenhall]

Hi Ash,

On Wed, 8 Sep 2004, Ashraf Ibrahim wrote:
> I have tried several times to install LimmaGUI on my MAC PowerBook G4
>  OS 10.3.5 and failed. I keep getting an error message about the tclTk not
> found. I would be every grateful for any advice. In particular,
> 1) What version of R should I use?
> 2) Do I use TkAqua at all or just X11 tk?
> 3) What version of tcltk do I use?

1) 1.9.1
2) Use only X11 Tcl/Tk.  (tkrplot doesn't work in Aqua.)
3) (a) Use the version of the tcltk R package which is
       distributed with R 1.9.1.
   (b) Use Tcl/Tk 8.4.x.

My Mac I.T. administrator is working on an R + Tcl/Tk
installation package for Mac OS X, but I can't do it myself
because I don't have installation privileges on a Mac.

You should install R 1.9.1 from CRAN (http://cran.r-project.org
or your local mirror).  This should include the
tcltk R package, but not Tcl/Tk itself.  If you have the
developer tools (C compilers etc.), you can install Tcl/Tk as
described in the R for Mac OS X FAQ:
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/RMacOSX-FAQ.html

in the section:
the TclTk 8.4 headers and libraries (optional)

which should install both Tcl and Tk in /usr/local/
This requires the X11 SDK (Software Development Kit), i.e.
header files etc. which should be on the Panther Developer CD.

If you don't have the developer tools, you can try the X11
Tcl/Tk installer at http://www.economia.unimi.it/R/

As far as I know, it shouldn't matter which order you install
things in: X11 Tcl/Tk then R or vice versa.  Once you have
these two things installed, you should be able to type
library(tcltk) from R, and it should find Tcl/Tk in /usr/local/

Then you can type tclvalue("auto_path") to see your Tcl search
path, and you can try loading the Tcl/Tk extensions required by
limmaGUI with tclRequire("Tktable") and tclRequire("BWidget")

They should be installed in
/usr/local/lib/Tktable2.8/ (or whatever version you use)
and
/usr/local/lib/BWidget-1.7.0/ (or whatever version you use)

Let us know if you have any specific errors to report after
installing X11 Tcl/Tk and R and then loading the tcltk R
package, and tclRequire()-ing the Tcl/Tk extensions.

Good luck!
James

> Many thanks for your help!
>
> Ash Ibrahim