[R-SIG-Mac] Tcl/Tk issues in arm64 build of R 4.1.0

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On 09/09/2021 19:03, John Fox wrote:
> Dear Simon, Philippe, and list members,
> 
> I've encountered some Tcl/Tk-related issues with the Apple silicon arm64 
> build of R 4.1.0 for macOS. These issues affect the Rcmdr package, 
> although they don't prevent it from working:
> 
> (1) Some fonts that are available for the Intel build appear to be 
> missing from the arm64 build. Compare the screen shots of the Rcmdr main 
> window at 
> <https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/jfox/.Pickup/x86_64-apple-darwin17.0.png> 
> (Intel build) and 
> <https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/jfox/.Pickup/aarch64-apple-darwin20.png> 
> (arm64 build). This problem is purely aesthetic.
> 
> (2) The Tcl/Tk Tktable package is apparently absent from the arm64 build 
> but still present in the Intel build. The Rcmdr detects its absence and 
> suppresses some features (i.e., those requiring the Rcmdr data editor). 
> I understand that the Tktable package is problematic and it may have 
> been removed intentionally.
> 
> The Tcl/Tk Tablelist package would be a reasonable substitute, and were 
> it available, I could use it to restore the missing features in the 
> Rcmdr. I'm aware that Philippe Grosjean planned to incorporate Tablelist 
> in his tcltk2 package, but as far as I know, that plan hasn't yet 
> materialized. If I knew how to supply a Tcl/Tk package in an R package, 
> I could put Tablelist directly in the Rcmdr.
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> John
> 
To close this circle, Simon has provided

https://mac.r-project.org/libs-arm64/tcltk-8.6.11-xft-darwin20.4-arm64.pkg

If you install that, it updates Tk and adds Tktable, solving both 
problems.  (As the Tcl/Tk installation is shared between R versions, 
this will fix 4.1.0 as well as 4.1.1.  It will be incorporated in future 
releases.)




-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley using stats.ox.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, University of Oxford