perl Tk::Zinc

[Mike Scott]

Hi all.

I've been trying to resurrect some old code of mine that made use of
perl's Tk::Zinc code.

Unfortunately, there seem to have been system changes involving tcl &/or
perl/Tk libraries that leave the Tk::Zinc code crashing with a SEGV from
within Tk's widget creation code, and which I don't have the knowledge
to fix.

The code is still listed on CPAN, but CPAN just says to build from
sources (github), which haven't changed since last used several years
ago, used to work OK and now don't :-{

Does anyone out there still use this rather nice piece of software and
might be able to help please?


This is on Mint 20.2, perl 5.30, tcl 8.6

Thanks.

[Jonathan N. Little]

Post by Mike Scott
Hi all.
I've been trying to resurrect some old code of mine that made use of
perl's Tk::Zinc code.
Unfortunately, there seem to have been system changes involving tcl &/or
perl/Tk libraries that leave the Tk::Zinc code crashing with a SEGV from
within Tk's widget creation code, and which I don't have the knowledge
to fix.
The code is still listed on CPAN, but CPAN just says to build from
sources (github), which haven't changed since last used several years
ago, used to work OK and now don't :-{
Does anyone out there still use this rather nice piece of software and
might be able to help please?
This is on Mint 20.2, perl 5.30, tcl 8.6
Thanks.

Did you try and install it with cpan?

cpan -i Tk::Zinc

[Mike Scott]

Post by Jonathan N. Little

Post by Mike Scott
Hi all.
I've been trying to resurrect some old code of mine that made use of
perl's Tk::Zinc code.
Unfortunately, there seem to have been system changes involving tcl &/or
perl/Tk libraries that leave the Tk::Zinc code crashing with a SEGV from
within Tk's widget creation code, and which I don't have the knowledge
to fix.
The code is still listed on CPAN, but CPAN just says to build from
sources (github), which haven't changed since last used several years
ago, used to work OK and now don't :-{
Does anyone out there still use this rather nice piece of software and
might be able to help please?
This is on Mint 20.2, perl 5.30, tcl 8.6
Thanks.

Did you try and install it with cpan?
cpan -i Tk::Zinc

Thanks for the reply.

Short answer 'no', because the cpan site seemed to suggest building from
source (and scratching at the back of my mind from several years ago is
the idea it wasn't on cpan anyway).

But the cpan install tests fail, so it doesn't complete. I did
eventually find how to get round the library problem (link a couple of
stub .a files), but get the same test failure issues. Forcing install
fails at runtime, unsurprisingly.

I did notice that there's a cpan testing page that just looks ominously
red for failure mostly. Looks as though something changed in perl
several versions ago and zinc hasn't been fixed to match.

I also see the tkzinc domain is now something else entirely.

:-{ Good bit of code going to waste it would seem.

My program uses zinc to provide smooth scrolling of a full-screen image
across the screen - does anyone know of an alternative possibility please?