How to assemble a starkit

First some background on what is happening behind the scenes...

Starkits rely on a feature of Tcl/Tk 8.4 called the Virtual File System (VFS). Through the magic of VFS, a starkit gets "mounted" at run time, such that it appears to contain a directory structure. Because of this, application scripts can load other scripts and open data files, even while running as starkit. The trick is to set up a structure which works in unpacked form while coding and testing, and which can later be assembled into an equivalent packaged starkit.

1. the Windows version of tclkit (Tcl/Tk, GUI mode) - see Downloading tclkit
2. the Windows version of tclkitsh (Tcl/Tk, console mode) - see Downloading tclkitsh
3. the SDX utility - see Downloading SDX

1. a suitable Unix version of tclkit - see Downloading tclkit
2. the SDX utility - see Downloading SDX

STEP 1 - Hello world

• create a file "hello.tcl" with the following two lines of text:

        package require Tk
        pack [button .b -text "Hello World!" -command bell]

• use the "qwrap" option to quickly turn a single script into a starkit:

        sdx qwrap hello.tcl

• the result is a file called "hello.kit"
• on Windows, SDX will also create a file "hello.bat"
• type "hello" on Windows, or "./hello.kit" on Unix
• you'll see a window with button which beeps when clicked

• now unwrap this starkit, to examine its contents:

        sdx unwrap hello.kit

• the result are unwrapped into "hello.vfs/"
• the startup script is at "hello.vfs/main.tcl"
• what you end up with is a standard starkit directory layout

• you can run your app unwrapped, using "tclkit hello.vfs/main.tcl"
• the original script is now in "hello.vfs/lib/hello.tcl"
• feel free to extend it, make changes, etc.
• you can add packages to "hello.vfs/lib/" and they'll be found
• repeat this step as often as needed to get things just right

• whenever you want to create an updated starkit, do:

        sdx wrap hello.kit

• this takes "hello.vfs/" as input, and overwrites "hello.kit"
• as before, that can be run with "hello" (Windows) or "./hello.kit" (Unix)

• Tclhttpd as starkit
• How to assemble a starpack
• Kitten - a large collection of extensions

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