Read the installation instructions. Note that these explain how to uninstall any existing version of Tcl/Tk, which should be done before installing the new one. (If this method of uninstalling fails then it is usually best to delete the whole tcl root directory.)
The tcl root directory is the directory in which Tcl is installed.
Tcl extensions (e.g. nap) are usually also installed in it.
Note that it is denoted below by the variable tcl_root.
A typical value for Windows is C:\Program Files\Tcl.
Typical values for Unix (including Linux) are ~/tcl (personal installation)
and /usr/local/tcl (system installation).
Unix users should include
tcl_root/bin in the list defined by the standard environment variable
PATH.
If there are problems with dynamic loading then try including
tcl_root/lib
in the list defined by the standard environment variable
LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
The following three executables will be installed in
tcl_root/bin:
tclsh
cron) jobs.
wish
tkcon
wish, but in a better console.
It is recommended as the normal way of running Tcl.
Each executable will execute a startup script file with the name listed in the following table, if this file is found in the home directory:
| Operating System | tclsh | wish | tkcon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | tclshrc.tcl
| wishrc.tcl
| tkcon.cfg
|
| Unix | .tclshrc
| .wishrc
| .tkconrc
|
If you are unsure of which directory is home, then enter the following two commands:
cd
pwd
The above installation process for Windows installs this documentation
in the form of the compiled HTML help file
ActiveTclHelp.chm.
Under Windows, the above help menu does include this local copy of the documentation.
The standard installation for Unix installs man pages in the directory
tcl_root/man.
If you want to use these then include this directory in MANPATH.
It is also possible to create a local copy of this documentation in HTML form.
Under Unix, this allows the
CAPS/NAP Menu
to provide a local copy of the Tcl Documentation (similar to that for Windows).
To do this, download the the HTML documentation into the directory
tcl_root/doc.
Then unpack the tar file and create a symbolic link
tcl_root/doc/html pointing
to the root directory of the unpacked files.
For example, if the Tcl root directory is
~/tcl
then download the version 8.4.9 file
ActiveTcl8.4.9.0.121397-html.tar.gz
into the directory
~/tcl/doc/.
Change to this directory and then unpack the file using a command such as
gtar zxf ActiveTcl8.4.9.0.121397-html.tar.gz
or
gunzip < gtar zxf ActiveTcl8.4.9.0.121397-html.tar.gz | tar xf -
Then create the symbolic link using
ln -s ActiveTcl8.4.9.0.121397-html html
The Mac OS X and Darwin platforms are supported via the Fink project, which has a nap page.
It is hoped to support HP-UX in the near future. The SGI Irix platform is no longer supported.
Note that the Linux IA64 installer installs a total tcl system as well as nap.
This platform does not have an uninstaller, so it is suggested you install into
a completely new directory rather than over an existing installation.
For example, if your installation directory is
~/tcl
you could do the following:
mv ~/tcl ~/tcl_old mkdir ~/tcl
The above installers can be downloaded from Tcl-NAP Files. They are in the form of starpacks, which are self-contained binary executables which contain the files to be installed. Starpacks are themselves based on Tcl and are described in Beyond TclKit - Starkits, Starpacks and other *stuff.
Then you simply execute the installer. It will first prompt you for the directory in which to install nap, which is usually the Tcl root directory. Then it will check for existing nap files and offer to delete them (strongly recommended) if any are found.
Finally it will offer to install three
standard nap startup script files
(with the names in the above table) in your home directory.
It is recommended that you install these unless you have alternative startup files.
Such alternative files can include the following commands to facilitate use of nap:
package require nap
namespace import ::NAP::*
If there will be other users then copy the three startup files to their home directories.
The script files
~/my_tkcon.cfg
and
~/my.tcl
will be sourced if they exist.
You can create
~/my_tkcon.cfg
to tailor the tkcon console to your personal requirements.
You can create
~/my.tcl
to tailor other aspects of the Tcl system to your personal requirements.
See
Sample Startup Scripts
for examples.
These scripts and the standard nap startup scripts are interrelated.
The script
tkcon.cfg (.tkconrc)
sources
~/my_tkcon.cfg
and initialises tkcon to source
wishrc.tcl (.wishrc).
The script
wishrc.tcl (.wishrc)
in turn sources
tclshrc.tcl (.tclshrc),
which sources
~/my.tcl.
On Unix systems it is possible to install nap in a directory
(which we will denote by nap_root)
other than the Tcl root directory.
If
nap_root ≠ tcl_root
then
nap_root/lib
must be included in the lists defined by:
auto_path
LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
~/alt.
The following two commands are included in
tclshrc.tcl
or
.tclshrc:
lappend auto_path ~/alt/lib
set env(LD_LIBRARY_PATH) ":~/alt/lib:$env(LD_LIBRARY_PATH)"
/lib/nap?.?/html
(where ?.? is the version number).
The
CAPS/NAP Menu
help menu includes this local copy as well as the remote web copy
Nap User's Guide.
A PDF version of this document can be downloaded from Tcl-NAP Files.
The Windows nap distribution now includes the ezprint utility, which provides access to printers. No such separate printing package is needed for Unix. Previous versions of nap used the printer package to provide access to printers on all platforms.
Previous versions of nap provided an interface to the vector facility in the package BLT. This allowed use of the BLT graph commmand, which was used at that time by the nap procedure plot_nao. NAP no longer provides an interface to BLT or uses it in any way.