# Using Tk in Ruby 185 **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 3, 2007, 8:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-tk-in-ruby-185/84385 "2007-02-03T20:56:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/uberalles)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2007, 8:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-tk-in-ruby-185/84385/1 "2007-02-03T20:56:12Z")
Hello all together, today I upgrade from Ruby 1.82 to 1.85-21, I installed it under windows with the one-click-installer. Most of my previous work works without a change, but I cannot get Tk working. Let me explain what is happening: 1. For 1.82, I installed ActiveTcl (Version 8332), and copied some of the libraries to ruby. 2. I tried that as well in the new ruby installation, but when I want to use Tk, ruby feezes, and I don’t get any feedback (no error, nothing). 3. I removed the copied libraries, and tried just to use Tk in IRB. - Start IRB, then “require ‘tk’” ==\> D:\programme\tcl\ActiveTcl8332\>irb irb(main):001:0\> require ‘tk’ ``` Then ruby is frozen, and I have to kill the process. ``` What am I missing here? Is Tk in the one-click-installer not included (seems so). What are the prerequisits for ruby to use tk widgets in ruby? Is it necessary to have the tcl/tk binaries in the path under windows? It would be nice if you had any idea how to locate the error. At the moment, I don’t have a clue. Bye Markus ---
**Author:** ![uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/uberalles)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2007, 9:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-tk-in-ruby-185/84385/2 "2007-02-03T21:59:15Z")
Markus L. schrieb: > Hello all together, > > today I upgrade from Ruby 1.82 to 1.85-21, I installed it under windows > with the one-click-installer. Most of my previous work works without a > change, but I cannot get Tk working. Tk is not part of the one-click-installer any more. See change note: 2006-02 - Updated release notes to mention that the install now only contains bindings to Tcl/Tk and that to use Tcl/Tk you must install it (recommending ActiveTcl). Wolfgang Nádasi-Donner ---
**Author:** ![uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/uberalles)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2007, 5:34am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-tk-in-ruby-185/84385/3 "2007-02-04T05:34:49Z")
From: “Markus L.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Subject: Using Tk in Ruby 185 Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2007 04:55:09 +0900 Message-ID: [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > today I upgrade from Ruby 1.82 to 1.85-21, I installed it under windows > with the one-click-installer. Most of my previous work works without a > (snip) > > 1. For 1.82, I installed ActiveTcl (Version 8332), and copied some of the > libraries to ruby. Possibly, one-click-installer 185 supports Tcl/Tk8.4 only (see [ruby-talk:235589]). If it is true, you have to use ActiveTcl8.4.x. ---
**Author:** ![uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/uberalles)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-tk-in-ruby-185/84385/4 "2007-02-04T14:20:35Z")
Thank you a lot. After installing the current Tcl Environment, the application is working again. One subtlety I have now: The Startup-command: D:\programme\ruby\ruby185-21\bin\ruby.exe c:\users\mliebelt\ruby\biblio\tk-gui.rb had to be changed. Previously, the rubyw.exe worked (so no DOS-window) was seen. After checking the files again, I have noticed, that I inserted some puts commands into one file. Could it be, that ruby dies when it sees a puts, but was started with the rubyw-executable? But anyway, the things are working again. Thanks a lot to all that helped. Bye Markus On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:34:36 +0100, Hidetoshi NAGAI ---
**Author:** ![uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/uberalles)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-tk-in-ruby-185/84385/5 "2007-04-01T23:54:58Z")
Wolfgang Nádasi-donner wrote: > Tk is not part of the one-click-installer any more. See change note: > > 2006-02 > > - Updated release notes to mention that the install now > only contains bindings to Tcl/Tk and that to use Tcl/Tk > you must install it (recommending ActiveTcl). > > Wolfgang N�dasi-Donner Do you know what the reason is? I just started to learn Ruby. I hardly made the decision between Python and Ruby. Now, Python still has a distribution with Tk (at least under Windows) and Ruby has not. So I have to ask my software users also to install ActiveTcl as well as the Ruby interpreter (total of 45 mb) and hope they won’t have any trouble ☹ ---
**Author:** ![uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@uberalles](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/uberalles)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-tk-in-ruby-185/84385/6 "2007-04-02T18:19:56Z")
Canol Gokel wrote: > So I > have to ask my software users also to install ActiveTcl as well as the > Ruby interpreter (total of 45 mb) and hope they won’t have any trouble > ☹ I’ve run into this problem myself. ActiveTcl has a somewhat annoying license as regards redistribution, so I just took the one click-installer, gutted it and built my own tcl/tk to go with it. So I have an entire ruby/tk environment in ~6 megs zipped with no redistribution restrictions. No fancy installer (yet) but it works well so far… Andrew