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

[John Fox]

Thank you Brian and Simon for fixing these problems.

Best,
  John


On 2021-09-18 2:20 a.m., Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> 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.)
> 
> 
> 
>