NeoSoft Tcl Lite Package Integration 1999

This is the NeoSoft, Inc. (Houston, TX, USA) release of tcl8.1-based software.

It is available from ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/tcl/neosoft/neotcl/.

It consists of the following packages integrated together:

	Tcl8.1.1
	Tk8.1.1
	TclX8.1.1
	Neo8.1.1 (NeoSoft-authored Tcl extensions, also includes db2.7.5)
	Itcl3.0.1
	gd1.2 (a graphics drawing library)

For more information on changes for this release, see the file RELEASE_NOTES
in this directory.

From the top (neotcl8.1.1/src) directory, it configures, builds and
installs all of the above packages.  We have tested the build on
the following systems:

	Sparc Solaris 2.5/Sun Pro C compiler
	FreeBSD 2.2.2/gcc 2.7.2.1
	SGI IRIX 6.2/SGI compiler

Adding other packages is a relatively simple matter.

Note the following general characteristics of NeoSoft integrated Tcl
vs. Standard Tcl:

1. Written or extended configure scripts for dp, blt, and gd,
including appropriate adjustments in Makefiles, adding or modifying
install scripts, etc.  You will find a new script in various places,
called 'install-pkgindex', which will correctly slice out old information
from the main pkgIndex.tcl file and replace it with the new pkgindex
information.  Also, while Dp's attempt at a graphical configuration
and installation interface continues to be a noble (and interesting)
attempt, we added back in the stuff to allow an installation to be done
normally (and thus be integrated with our release).  Note that BLT-unoff
as delivered wants to install into its own hierarchy, and it has changed
to install into all the same directories as everything else.

2. The Neo package continues to contain db2.7.5 which builds from the
configure script.  The Neo package supports Tcl commands for talking
to a db file, and not all systems supply a useful db
library.  If you want to use your system-supplied libdb.a (or libdb.so)
you may use the configure option --with-db=system.  If your system has a
libdb* file, it will use it (but no guarantees that yours is good).
You may also use a db-2.x.y release in db185 compatability mode.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Autoconf for db detects BYTE_ORDER.  Some systems
we have shipped with DB libraries did not configure the byte order
explicitly, which means it defaulted to BIG_ENDIAN.  If BYTE_ORDER ==
LITTLE_ENDIAN, DB swaps bytes around.  This makes it slower, and
incompatable.  I can think of no reason to do this other
than to support access from heterogeneous systems via NFS.  If this
turns out to be a problem for you, go to the auto directory (listed
below) and modify the include/compat.h there manually to set the BYTE_ORDER.

4. See our Tcl web page at http://www.neosoft.com/tcl for information
about NeoSoft commercial support and testing metrics.

5. See the individual packages' README, CHANGES (etc.) files for more
information on restrictions, enhancements, etc.

6. In most cases, this should just configure and build.  If you 
have any problems, please let us know at tcl-project@neosoft.com.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to the Tcl community, without which Tcl would not exist.
Especially:

	John Ousterhout and the many - Tcl and Tk
		Sun Microsystems for their continuing support

	Mark Diekhans and Karl Lehenbauer - Extended Tcl (more and more
		of which keeps getting subsumed into core Tcl!)

	Michael McClennan - [incr tcl]

	Brian C. Smith/Cornell University and
	Lawrence A. Rowe/University of California at Berkeley
		Distributed Processing extensions

	Don Libes/NIST - Expect

	Tom Boutell and the Quest Center At Cold Spring Harbor Labs
		Graphics Drawing library (gd)

	Mark L. Ulferts/DSC Communications Corp and others - [incr Widgets]

	And the Tcl community at large, which continues to inspire and
	contribute to the cause.
