In [the comp.lang.tcl newsgroup], I asked:  "Does anyone here have any thoughts or pointers into the [Wiki], or to papers that might help us port our current Tcl-[Tk] [GUI]s to a browser without re-coding in [Java]?" 

I received the following suggestions:  

   * [Marty Backe] suggested [tcljava] and [swank], "particularly the latter."  [CL] observes that Swank is for use with the [Jacl] part of Tcljava.

   * [Tom Poindexter] suggested:  "You might try [WeirdX], it's an X11 server written in Java, and runs as a browser applet.  I've used this in the past to deliver Tcl/Tk applications for internal users.  It's suitable for running on fast, secure networks."  

   * Tom also suggests:  "[Proxy Tk] would also be an idea, but to my knowledge, it never made it into public consumption".  Brian Oakley (mailto:bryan@bitmover.com) also offered the same suggestion, continuing:  "The short summary is, you write tk on the server which drives a thin client that  translates the tk commands into java widgets in the client.   The software isn't available, but it looks like a fairly straight-forward thing to reinvent.  Unless your guis are trivial, it may take less effort to reinvent proxytk than it would be to recode all of the GUIs in Java."  He also pointed me to the original author's pre-publication copy [http://www.markroseman.com/pubs/proxytk.pdf]. 

   * Several folks suggested VNC [http://www.realvnc.com/].  Note that the latest versions are now from RealVNC Ltd., as AT&T has closed its Cambridge Labs.  

   * Donal Fellows (mailto:donal.k.fellows@man.ac.uk) suggested: "If you end up having to do Java GUIs, start by porting the Tk geometry managers to Java as the standard ones are not really very good (GridBagLayout sucks a lot more than you might think at first.  Trust me.)  That'll save you much frustration."  

   * Roy Terry (mailto:royterry@earthlink.net) suggested:  "You can run Tcl/Tk as an activeX object using TclControl.  I believe, but haven't done the work, that you could also package the tclcontrol along with the needed Tcl/Tk dlls, etc. into a CAB file and have the whole thing download seamlessly on Windows."  A paper [http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~fuzz/TclControl/] provides details.

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[Category Internet]