[R-SIG-Mac] Problem with tcl/tk for R in Tiger

[Bill Northcott]

On 17/08/2005, at 8:00 PM, Kasper Daniel Hansen wrote:
> If you use the newest version of R for MacOS you have the option of
> installing tcl/tk (use "custom" under installation). Using that it  
> should
> work! You may need to delete the old stuff in case of conflicts.
>

IMHO while this might work, it is really not a good way to go.  Aqua  
Tcl/Tk is part of Apple's system software as of Tiger and installing  
the versions from the R package will effectively replace them, which  
is likely to lead to trouble in the future.

I think the right way is to build an X11 Tk framework called Tk- 
X11.framework to distinguish its functions from the system's Aqua  
framework.  I have suggested to Dan Steffen that this is how X11 Tk  
should be built.

I have built such a framework on Tiger using the system's Tcl and  
little manual tweaking to get the names right.  It seems to work well  
with R and other packages.  I am in the process of making a Tiger  
build of Swarm that will use this framework.

I would like to see something similar for R.

Bill Northcott