Tcl - ANNOUNCE: Tcl/Tk 8.5a3 Release

Author

ANNOUNCE: Tcl/Tk 8.5a3 Release

Kevin Kenny

2005-06-07, 8:58 pm

Tcl/Tk 8.5a3 Release Announcement
June 4, 2004

The Tcl Core Team is pleased to announce the 8.5a3 releases of the Tcl
dynamic language and the Tk toolkit. This is the third alpha release
of Tcl/Tk 8.5. More details can be found below. We would like to
express our gratitude to all those who submit bug reports and patches.
This information is invaluable in enabling us to identify and eliminate
problems in the core.

Where to get the new releases:
------------------------------

Tcl/Tk 8.5a3 sources are freely available as open source from the
Tcl Developer Xchange web site at:

http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/8.5.html

This web page also contains additional information about the releases,
including new features and notes about installing and compiling the
releases. Sources are always available from the Tcl SourceForge
project's file distribution area:

http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=10894

For additional information:
---------------------------

Please visit the Tcl Developer Xchange web site:

http://www.tcl.tk/

This site contains a variety of information about Tcl/Tk in general, the
core Tcl and Tk distributions, Tcl development tools, and much more.

Thank you for your contributions:
---------------------------------

As usual, this release includes contributions from the Tcl community.
We have a page honoring these contributors at:

http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/contributors.html

Summary of Changes since Tcl/Tk 8.5a2:
--------------------------------------

The following were the main changes in Tcl/Tk 8.5a2. A complete list
can be found in the changes file at the root of the source tree. The
more complete ChangeLog is also included with each source release.

This release is the second alpha release of 8.5. The alpha moniker means
that it is in feature addition mode. All relevant bugs fixes (and some
more) up to and including 8.4.10 changes are included in 8.5a3. The
following list focuses on new features added so far in 8.5. This release
is a development release, and should only be considered for deployment
use after considerable testing.

* [TIP 132] Improve floating-point conversion to string
***POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY***
For scripts that rely on (tcl_precision==12) number formatting

* [TIP 176] Homogenized index arithmetic

* [TIP 182] Added [expr {bool(...)}] math function

* [TIP 183] Added [open $f {... BINARY ...}] option

* [TIP 218] Tcl_Channel API update for threads

* [TIP 229] Added [namespace path] subcommand

* [TIP 232] Math functions as commands
***POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY***
Tcl_GetMathFuncInfo function is reduced and is now deprecated

* [TIP 233] Virtualized time API

* [TIP 235] C API for ensembles

* [TIP 241] Added -nocase option to lsort, lsearch, switch

* [TIP 245] Added [tk inactive] subcommand

* Updated build support for Mac OS X, Solaris 10 (64-bit, x86 and sparc),
AIX gcc and HP-UX gcc builds, OpenBSD ports, and allow msys builds
without cygwin installed

* Fixed encoding memory leaks and improve Tcl_Encoding cache lifetimes

* Removed TCL_DBGX and TK_DBGX from configure system

* Fixed 'glob' on Windows shares

* Windows pipes now honor -blocking on close to mirror existing unix
behavior, set -blocking 1 before 'close' to receive exit status
***POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY***

* Tcl_Expr* corrections for Tcl_WideInt

* Clean up memory loss at thread exit

* Lower minimum buffer size from 10 to 1 byte

* Update timezone data to tzdata2005i

* Removed TCL_NO_MATH compiler directive

* Make unix notifier thread joinable

* Improve BMP, JPG image load speed

* Improved Windows embedded window handling

* Add Spanish msg catalog

* Several panedwindow drawing, destruction fixes

* Correct MouseWheel %A translation

* Improve Aqua native look and feel for entry and spinbox

* Improve load-able Tk on Aqua

* Several Aqua widget usability fixes

* tk_popup menus are now "sticky"

* Correctly display Unicode characters in X11 titlebars

* Fixed UID thread-safety in canvas

* Added Aqua tk_getOpenFile encoding

* Fixed Aqua floating window focus

* Added Aqua [wm attributes -notify] option

* Documentation improvements and test suite expansion

--

Tcl Core Team and Maintainers
Jeff Hobbs, Tcl Core Release Manager

Francois Vogel

2005-06-10, 4:02 pm

Hi all,

I was checking the roadmap on the wiki http://wiki.tcl.tk/12753

I observe that 8.5a3 has just been released and is 5 months late wrt to this
schedule (it was planned for dec. 2004).

Is the wiki roadmap still valid? Will 8.5 final release actually be
available in fall 2005?

Thanks,
Francois

Donal K. Fellows

2005-06-10, 4:02 pm

Francois Vogel wrote:
> Is the wiki roadmap still valid? Will 8.5 final release actually be
> available in fall 2005?

I'd put money on it *not* being valid. Perhaps we'll get a beta release
ready by then (please!) but a final release? Unlikely.

Donal.

Francois Vogel

2005-06-10, 4:02 pm

> I'd put money on it *not* being valid. Perhaps we'll get a beta release
> ready by then (please!) but a final release? Unlikely.

Your "please!" shout at me.

What's the process for a release?
What's driving the release dates?
Who decides that a given state of development can make a release candidate?

Francois

Sponsored Links