stk/CHANGES

04/27/98 Release 3.99.1
-----------------------

Mainly minor correction to 3.99.0 (installation problems principally)

Otherwise:
    * Inclusion of the Metaclass init-keywords patch from J-M Kubek 
      <kubek@insa-tlse.fr>, which allows to initialize some slots of 
      a class when declaring it.

    * Tk widgets can be initailized at creation time, even if they 
      are disabled (idea from Walter C. Pelissero
      <wcp@luppolo.lpds.sublink.org>


04/10/98 Release 3.99.0
-----------------------

This is the pre-4.0 release. Why is is not called 4.0? Good question. 
This version would have been numbered 4.0 if there was not a so long
time between this release and the previous one. Since I take so long 
to release, I had time to add a lot of things to my "TODO list". 
And this version misses some things that I consider important (even if 
not visible form outside) to be called 4.0. Furthermore, ther is a big 
absent since last release which is the port on Windows. The real 4.0 
will have support for Windows.

Here are the main visible changes from previous release:

   About Scheme

   * A module system has been added
   * Integration of the Bigloo MATCH-CASE and MATCH-LAMBDA
     primitives. Furthermore, the file bigloo.stk provides
     some compatibility between STk and bigloo modules.
   * A simple FFI has been added. It allows to access C
     functions without writing C code (works only on a
     limited set of architectures for now).
   * integrates the R5RS VALUES and CALL-WITH-VALUES
   * multi-line comments have been added.
   * The "-file" interpreter option is no more necessary
   * Display of the prompt and of the eval result in the
     REPL are now user definable.
   * report-error mechanism has been enhanced a lot (work
     is not completely achieved).
   * new-primitives: append!, last-pair, C-string->string,
     remove-file, rename-file, temporary-file-name, ...
   * Numerous bug corrections
   * ...

   About Tk

   * Integration of the Tk8.0 toolkit
   * The old inspector has been adapted to work with
     current release (not completely, but sufficiently
     while the new version is terminated)
   * Buttons, Checkbuttons and Radiobuttons can use a
     :variable and :textvariable in a given environment.
     This environment is given with the new :environment
     option.
   * New metaclass: <Tk-composite-toplevel>. This is
     identical to the class <Tk-composite-widget>, except
     that the widhet lives in its own toplevel window.
   * make-image simplifies the usage of Tk images and uses
     a cache, to speed-up access to already used images.
   * The little square window, which used to appear as soon
     as STk was launched, appears now only when the first
     widget is mapped on screen.
   * ...

   About STklos

   * The MOP of STklos is now very similar to the CLOS one.
     Here are some of the new features:
	o when a slot does not exists, the gf slot-missing
	  is called
	o when a unbound slot is read, the gf slot-unbound
	  is called
	o new generic functions slot-ref-using-class,
	  slot-set-using-class, slot-bound-using-class?,
	  slot-exists-using-class?, slot-definition-name,
	  slot-definition-options,
	  slot-definition-allocation,
	  slot-definition-getter, slot-definition-setter,
	  slot-definition-accessor, generic-function-name,
	  generic-function-methods,
	  method-generic-function, method-specializers
	  method-procedure, remove-method
	  change-object-class

  * When a class is redefined, the instances and methods which uses it
    are redefined accordingly, as in CLOS (i.e. if you add a slot in a
    class, all its -- direct or indirect -- instances will have the new
    slot added dynamically. 

   * New kind of slot allocation: "active". An active slot
     is a slot for which you can put a daemon before or
     after its reading/writing
   * Standard behavior of class slots is now identical to
     CLOS: when a class-slot is inherited, it is shared
     with instances of the superclass. If it is redefined,
     a new slot is created
   * slot initializers are evaluated in the lexical
     environment of the class definition.
   * (Tk-)virtual slots can now have an :initform option.
   * Generic functions can be now traced with the standard
     TRACE function.
   * Composite widgets have now a class slots which
     contains the class of the object. This slot is
     initialized by default to "Composite", but it can be
     overloaded for a particular class. For instance
     labeled entries use the value "LabeledEntry" by
     default. This feature can be used for initializing the
     X11 resource database. for instance you can have
     STk*LabeledEntry*Entry*Background: white in your
     .Xdefaults file to set the default value of background
     of the entry of a <Labeled-entry> widget.
   * New composites widgets: Gauge, Valued-Gauge,
     Balloon-help
   * The HTML-browser has been enhanced to access now the
     web (i.e. you can grab distant texts or images). The
     Web browser admit now applets written in Scheme.
   * New kind of slot allocation: "active". An active slot
     is a slot for which you can put a daemon before or
     after its reading/writing
   * extended types (defined in C) are now automatically
     integrated in the STklos hierarchy.
   * Several new classes for displaying messages boxes
   * New class <Color-box> for choosing colors.
   * New <Tk-Text-inset>. This class is the now the parent
     class of <Text-window> and of (the new) class
     <Text-image>.
   * ...


09/26/96 Release 3.1.1
----------------------

This release is a bug correction release. It corrects a lot bugs.
A lot of theses bugs prevent to install it on some architectures.
Apart bugs:

	- Version of Tk is now at Tk4.1p1 level (last stable version)
	
	- a MS VC makefile is now provided for Win 32 thanks to 
	Caleb Deupree <cdeupree@erinet.com> (I have changed some things 
	from the Caleb file but cannot test them, I hope this is correct)
	
	- Support for sockets on Win32 was done by  Caleb Deupree on MS 
	VC. This should also work on BC++ but I'm not able to test it.
	

07/24/96 Release 3.1
--------------------

	- Version of Tk is now at Tk4.1 level. 

	- STk run now on Win32!!! 
	Some details need a little more work (some oddities on file names
	due to difference conventions between Unix and DOS, and things like 
	that). No socket support and no dynamic loading on Win32

	- A complete documentation of STk widgets pages (both in nroff 
	and HTML format). The help command really allow you to browse
	man pages now. Man pages are prefixed by "stk_" now to avoid confusion 
	with original Tk manual pages. 

	- STklos is now integrated to STk (it was dynamically loaded before).
	  This simplify its implementation and speed up generic functions:
		o gf are now 2-4 time faster
		o gf are now tail recursive
		o the MOP for gf is now "public" (i.e. you can change the way 
		  gf are called in Scheme -- it was not possible with previous 
		  versions without using C).

	- Port implementation is different: A port contains now its
	input and output handler. New primitives to access the handler:
	when-port-readable and when-port-writable.
	BTW, The Tk function fileevent function is no more useful
	(it is written in Scheme now for compatibility, but its usage 
	is deprecated). It may not be supported in a future release.

	- New composite widgets: <Multiple-window> and <Inner-window>
	which allow to have embedded windows. A multiple window 
	has a task bar below and allow to iconify inner-windows. 
	Some people think it looks like Win95 desktop ;-)	

	- pixmap extension doesn't require anymore the Xpm library. Code
	is stolen from the Tix Library.

	- New socket code which allow multiple concurrent connection

	- Extended types can now have a compare function which	is called
	 when eqv? or equal? is called. This modification should be 
	 compatible with the previous extensions (I hope so)
	
	- STklos: Two new methods: object-eqv? and object-equal? which are 
	called when applying eqv? or equal? to instances.

	- A rewriting of bind-for-dragging canvas method. You can now specify 
	a :before-motion, which if it returns #f, forbid to move the selected 
	canvas item.

	- New primitives:setenv!, posix-host-name, posix-domain-name, 
	posix-uname	  
	
	- Option separator "--" allows to pass reserved keyword (sush as -help) 
	to a script. Option and parameter cannot be mixed anymore
	(i.e. calling stk xyz -help ==> *argv* = ("xyz" "-help")

	- HTML browser enhancement (support of the <FONT> tag with SIZE 
	  and COLOR sub-tags. This must be compatible with the HTML spec. 

	- and of course many many bug corrections.


01/22/96 Release 3.0 (also called 3.0b2 by error)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
	- Version of Tk is now at Tk4.0p2 level

	- Support Pixmap images

	- Strings can now contain null charters (printing of strings is more 
	friendly now in write mode

	- Executable is now position independant(i.e. no path coded in hard in 
	the interpreter). STK_LIBRARY shell variable is no more necessary. We
	can now make binary distributions.

	- Signal can now be redirected to Scheme closures. The end of a GC 
	is seen as a signal.

	- Trace on variable are changed (and re-work now): the associated trace
	must be a thunk now.

	- New option for buttons, checkbuttons, radiobuttons and entries: 
	:stringvalue.
	This options tells if the value must be stringified or not. 
	For instance, with
	    (radiobutton '.c :text "Try" :variable 'x :stringvalue #f :value 100)
	will set the "x" var to "100" whereas with
	    (radiobutton '.c :text "Try" :variable 'x :stringvalue #t :value 100)
	value is set to the integer value 100
	Default value for :stringvalue is #t for entries and #f for check and
	radio buttons.

	- stk-wtour demo is updated for STk 3.0

	- In STklos, if a method M is defined and if it is already bound to 
	a procedure, the old procedure is called when no method is applicable.
	Example:
	    (define-method car ((x <integer>)) (- x 1))
	    (car 10)           ==> 9
	    (car (cons 'a 'b)) ==> a
	As a consequence, this kind of method cannot call no-applicable-method
	if parameters are not valid:
	     (car (vector 1 2))  ==> error car: wrong type of argument: #(1 2)

	- Small change in the STklos hierarchy. <widget> is now a subclass of
	<procedure> and its meta class is <procedure-metaclass>.
	
	
10/07/95 Release 3.0b1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A lot of modifications. Briefly,
	- Support of Tk4.0 
	- Closures are fully supported by Tk. That means that a callback can be 
	  now a  Scheme closure with its environment. GC problems with closures
	  and usage of the dirty "address-of" are definitively gone.
	- HTML support (a browser is provided, should be extended to support
	  all HTML2.0)
	- Documentation is now in HTML for the Tk commands (only a few commands
	  are ready for now, but they will be all defined in a near future).
	- ....


07/15/95 Release 2.2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~	

This is the last release with Tk 3.6. Next release will integrate Tk 4.0

	- Bug corrections 
	- Changing Makefiles and configure files for better dynamic loading
	  integration. 
	- Adding support for BLT-1.7. This library can be loaded dynamically
	  on system which support it
	- New option which permit to change the initial amount of cells
	- Uses really LESS memory.
	- New GC. Now  we have a set of heaps and a new heap is allocated as
	  soon as the global space is "nearly" filled.
	- SLIB support (just type (require "slib") and after that process as
	  indicated in SLIB documentation
	- Integration of the Suresh Srinivas STk-wtour demo.
	- Adding support for Text in STklos: Definition of the <Text> class
	  (and companion <Text-tag> class).
	- call/cc is now tail recursive. (Alas, methods and dynamic-wind are
	  not yet tail recursive).
	- Better support for autoloading files
	- Adding support for an exec function a` la Tcl (i.e. execute of a 
	  unix process and keep its output in a Scheme string)
	- General run-process for running Unix process were std{in,out,err} 
	  can be redirected in files or in pipes.
	- Some code has been rewritten to ease STk porting
	- Adding support for regular expression pattern matching and
	  replacement 
	- There is now a light interpreter, called snow (for Scheme
	  NO Window); this is in fact the STk interpreter without Tk support. 
	  This interpreter is an independant executable. It can be called 
	  with the `snow' shell-script or by unsetting the DISPLAY variable.
	- New organisation of intalled file to permit co-existence of
	  several version of STk or multi-architecture file sharing
	- Dynamic loading support for NetBSD-1.0 
	- Dynamic loading support for HP
	- Dynamic loading and dump support for FreeBsd.
	- Dynamic loading for Linux (using ELF format or the DLD package)
	- A mini interface builder (very simplistic, but usable)
	- New contributions: A true Tetris game, a 8 queens simulation and 
	  a demo of composite widgets.
	- Every exported identifier now starts with the string "STk_" to
	  avoid name clashes when embedding the interpreter in an application.
	- BSD sockets support 	
	- Better integration with Emacs
	- AMIB (A Mini Interface Builder) 
	- A lot of improvement in STklos
	- .....

See the ChangeLog file for more information
 	
==============================================================================
??/??/?? Release 2.1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~	

This is a major release version. 
    
	- STklos (the object layer) is now written in C. It is more than 150
	  times faster than before and it uses less memory (~ 1/100)!!!!
	- Improvement of STklos 
	- STklos classes have been written for all the Tk library widgets
	- Composites widgets can be easily defined in STklos. Access to those
	  widgets is identical to C written one.
	- bindings can be now true lambda expression with their own
	  environment (rather than list which are evaluated in the global 
	  environment).
	- Hash tables have been added.	
	- Small constants are coded on a pointer rather than a cell
    	- Support for dynamic loading on SunOs (4 and 5). Dynamic loading
      	  uses shared objects (it should work also on OSF1)
	- Dump creates now smaller images.
	- Modification of configure and Makefiles to correct of a lot 
	  of installation problems.
	- Runs on Solaris 2.3
	- Bugs corrections 
	- Some modification to the error notifier
	- Support of dynamic loading of shared objects on Solaris 1 & 2 (it
	  should work also on OSF1).
	- ...

94/01/03 Release 2.0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    STk 2.0 contains a completly rewritten Scheme interpreter. This new
    interpreter is
            - R4RS
            - faster than previous release (~ 3 or 4 times)
            - less bugged (I hope :-) )
            - implements integers (32 bits and bignum) and floats
            - cleaner with macros 
    
    This version contains also a prototype of a graphical inspector which
    permits to see/modify a variable value. For widgets variables it permits
    to modify interactively their behaviour. However, it doesn't yet contain
    a C rewritting of the object layer as it was planned. This will be done
    in a (probably the) next release.

93/09/02 Release 1.00 (first public release)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Forget it :)