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Quick links: Latest standalone Alphatk executable for Windows, for MacOS X 10.2.x, and .tar.gz for Unix.

Downloading Tcl/Tk

On Windows and MacOS X (10.2 or newer), all you need is the standalone executable download. There are no external dependencies at all.

On Unix (with X-windows), you will usually have tcl/tk already installed (but you may wish to install a newer, faster version --- type 'wish' at the command line to start tcl/tk and then 'info patchlevel' if that works to find out which version you have). If you just have the 'tclsh' shell, that's not enough -- you need to have 'wish' as well. Binary releases are available here for Tcl/Tk 8.4.6. You may instead prefer to use a single-file 'TclKit' (which includes all of Tcl, Tk and ancilliary libraries), so that you do not need to install anything. You can get these from tclkit downloads (MacOS X version not yet available). Either way, I would suggest Tcl/Tk 8.4.1 or newer (and preferably something as recent as 8.4.5 or 8.5prerelease), since the newer releases are substantially faster than the older versions.

Downloading Alphatk

The ftp site for Alphatk is ftp://ftp.ucsd.edu/pub/alpha /tcl/alphatk/, which you should check regularly --- I upload modified versions quite often, without any formal announcements (every 1-3 months I announce a new version on comp.lang.tcl, summarising the recent changes). Full release versions always have the version number in the name on this ftp site, and the latest development version is the only one without a version number. Some people have reported problems accessing this ftp site using certain ftp clients -- if you have a problem, please try something else (e.g. try with internet explorer, safari, mozilla, etc.).

Patches to the current Alphatk version, if any are available, can be downloaded with this link.

"MacUpdate" and "Version tracker" can be used to keep up to date with releases of Alphatk, via this link for windows and this one for MacOS X. If you'd like to review or comment on Alphatk, you can also do so there. It is also listed on linuxlinks.

Current release

Version 8.3.3 is the recommended current release, and users of all older versions are recommended to upgrade. The standalone versions of Alphatk work out of the box. If you prefer to use the .zip or .tar.gz installations, you will need version 8.4.3 or newer of Tcl,Tk.

A standalone executable for Windows alphatk8.3.exe, which requires no additional downloads at all.

A standalone executable for MacOS X, Alphatk8.3.dmg.gz, which requires no additional downloads at all. This is known to work on Jaguar (OS X 10.2.x). Older versions of MacOS X are not supported.

As a cross-platform starkit alphatk.kit, which requires the platform-specific TclKit executable for your platform from tclkit downloads.

As a compressed archive: Alphatk.zip, or alphatk.tar.gz . These require an installation of Tcl/Tk to be useful.

Development Alphatk releases

The latest cross-platform development release (currently version 8.4 alpha) is always available in the same set of formats (this is the same as the 'current release' at present). For windows alphatk.exe, for MacOS X, Alphatk.dmg.gz, as a cross-platform starkit alphatk.kit, as a compressed archive: Alphatk.zip, alphatk.tar.gz . (The last two links require Tcl 8.4.5 or newer).

Previous versions

The final release of Alphatk 8.2 is available: A standalone executable for Windows alphatk8.2.exe, which requires no additional downloads at all. A standalone executable for MacOS X, Alphatk8.2.dmg, which requires no additional downloads at all. This is known to work on Jaguar (OS X 10.2.x). On OS X 10.1.5 you will have to download the Tcl,Tk.frameworks from sourceforge and use them instead of the ones which are in the '.dmg'. Sorry about that inconvenience (in addition the frameworks I distribute contain some improvements so that Alphatk runs faster and has a better gui). Finally, you can also use: Alphatk8.2.zip , or alphatk8.2. tar.gz . These will work with any version of Tcl/Tk 8.1 or newer. I suggest using Tcl 8.3.4 or newer, since Alphatk will try to make use of features available in the newer Tcl/Tk releases.

Older versions: The final release of Alphatk 8.1 is available: Alphatk8.1.zip , or alphatk8.1. tar.gz . It'll work with any version of Tcl/Tk 8.1 or newer. I suggest using Tcl 8.3.4 or newer, since Alphatk will try to make use of features available in the newer Tcl/Tk releases.

Older versions: Alphatk 8.0 can be downloaded from: Alphatk8.0.zip , or alphatk8.0. tar.gz . It'll work with any version of Tcl/Tk 8.1 or newer. Alphatk 7.3 releases are also available (for use with Tcl/Tk 8.0) but these are not recommended.

Site mirrors

Occasionally people tell me they've had problems accessing the ftp.ucsd.edu ftp site. I will occasionally upload releases to www.neosoft .com , so you can check there.

Purchasing

You may purchase a license to Alphatk through Kagi's online services. Please note that Alphatk is not Alpha. Alpha is a separate product written by Pete Keleher, running on MacOS. If you use MacOS a lot, you can choose which product you prefer, or may wish to buy both.

Installation

Provided you have Tcl/Tk installed, you don't have to do anything! Place the downloaded hierarchy wherever you like. Then just double-click on 'alphatk.tcl' to run Alphatk. To open a document with Alphatk do: 'wish runalpha.tcl document'.

Alphatk makes use of the following packages if you have them installed:

Also note that versions of cat, diff for Windows are available in the same ftp directory as alphatk (but they are also distributed in Alphatk's 'Tools' directory).