Hey all,

Asked and answered years ago, but one more time: any way to run tcl/tk
on an iPhone? My toy program turns out to be somewhat useful and
family members would like it on their phones.  Android, Windows,
Linux, ... but no iPhones :(

https://www.beezmo.com/geezblog/?p=1842

thanks,
Bill
--
William D Waddington

"Even bugs...are unexpected signposts on
the long road of creativity..." - Ken Burtch

Bill Waddington <william.waddington@beezmo.com> wrote:

Asked and answered years ago, but one more time: any way to run tcl/tk
on an iPhone? My toy program turns out to be somewhat useful and
family members would like it on their phones.  Android, Windows,
Linux, ... but no iPhones :(
https://www.beezmo.com/geezblog/?p=1842

Apple wouldn't allow any full fledged programming languages on "their"
phones.  One might "root" ones own iPhone, and try to port Androwish
source to iOS, but even if one took that (rather big) burden, probably
only few would be willing to root their phones.

iPhone-using Fans of your app might easier grab some old android phone
from some flea-market, not even register with google, but just download
your apk with builtin browser (over Wifi, so they don't even need a sim-
card), set security option to allow "install from any sources", and then
install the apk - much less hassle than rooting their iphones.

Am 24.04.22 um 18:02 schrieb Bill Waddington:

Hey all,

Asked and answered years ago, but one more time: any way to run tcl/tk
on an iPhone? My toy program turns out to be somewhat useful and
family members would like it on their phones.  Android, Windows,
Linux, ... but no iPhones :(

iOS is a pretty closed system. Even if you were to write a proper iOS app, you would at least a Mcbook with XCode and a developer account from Apple which costs $99 per year.

Another alternative is to run your app on a server let users connect to it via the web; CLoudTk can do this for you: http://cloudtk.tcl-lang.org/

The example on the wiki work like this, all you need for access is a web browser, but for providing this service you need a Linux server.

Checkout e.g. to see if this works on the iPhone: https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/tkEngine

Best regards,

Christian

At Mon, 25 Apr 2022 08:20:42 +0200 Christian Gollwitzer <auriocus@gmx.de> wrote:

Am 24.04.22 um 18:02 schrieb Bill Waddington:

Hey all,

Asked and answered years ago, but one more time: any way to run tcl/tk
on an iPhone? My toy program turns out to be somewhat useful and
family members would like it on their phones.  Android, Windows,
Linux, ... but no iPhones :(

iOS is a pretty closed system. Even if you were to write a proper iOS
app, you would at least a Mcbook with XCode and a developer account from
Apple which costs $99 per year.

There are ways of creating a VM "Hackintosh".  I think you can download and
use XCode for free -- at least that used  to be the case.  At least for
creating MacOSX apps, don't know about iOS exactly.  In some ways Apple is
actually *worse* then Microsoft.  With M$ it is trivial to cross-build apps at
no cost.

Another alternative is to run your app on a server let users connect to
it via the web; CLoudTk can do this for you: http://cloudtk.tcl-lang.org/

The example on the wiki work like this, all you need for access is a web
browser, but for providing this service you need a Linux server.

Checkout e.g. to see if this works on the iPhone:
https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/tkEngine

Best regards,

Christian
                                                             

--
Robert Heller             -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Linux Administration Services
heller@deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services
                                

On 4/25/22 2:20 AM, Christian Gollwitzer wrote:

Another alternative is to run your app on a server let users connect to it via the web; CLoudTk can do this for you: http://cloudtk.tcl-lang.org/

The example on the wiki work like this, all you need for access is a web browser, but for providing this service you need a Linux server.

Hello,

This looks promising but I believe it supports single window applications only. I do wonder if this limitation could be avoided by doing some window management behind the scenes. What I am thinking is, when a new toplevel is requested, minimize (or unmap) the current one and push its name onto a stack, and when a window is closed, display (or map) the last one from the stack.  That would make it quite powerful.

On Mon, 25 Apr 2022 12:57:07 -0400, saitology9@gmail.com wrote:

On 4/25/22 2:20 AM, Christian Gollwitzer wrote:

Another alternative is to run your app on a server let users connect to
it via the web; CLoudTk can do this for you: http://cloudtk.tcl-lang.org/

The example on the wiki work like this, all you need for access is a web
browser, but for providing this service you need a Linux server.

Hello,

This looks promising but I believe it supports single window
applications only. I do wonder if this limitation could be avoided by
doing some window management behind the scenes. What I am thinking is,
when a new toplevel is requested, minimize (or unmap) the current one
and push its name onto a stack, and when a window is closed, display (or
map) the last one from the stack.  That would make it quite powerful.

Thanks all for the suggestions.  The 2nd inexpensive/retired phone
idea would work, but for some reason my casual users don't seem
interested... guess it's not a life-or-death app after all ;)

My one-man ISP doesn't favor the CloudTK approach.  He provides
exceptional service and responsiveness, and I can't argue with his
reasoning as it applies to his servers.  Quoting his reply below - I
don't think I'm violating any confidence here.  It's an excellent
example of his thoughtful replies to issues and questions.

thanks again,
Bill

***I'm pretty wary of installing customized services on the servers
here. If it requires a specialized instance of a web-like server to
run, then it isn't something I'd like to do. The hacking attempts are
just so intense it would mean I would have to have a customized way of
logging and blocking the endless hacking attempts it would eventually
create.
***
***But if you could run it via a PHP front-end through the existing
web server, that should be doable. However, the same issue may occur,
hackers may start pounding at it and it could then use considerable
server resources. It would also be important that the code was auditet
carefully for buffer overflows or various injections.
***
***My main goal with the servers here is to keep them very fast, and
also secure. So it pretty much means keeping things as simple as
possible.
--
William D Waddington

"Even bugs...are unexpected signposts on
the long road of creativity..." - Ken Burtch