Welcome to NeoSoft96.Q4 Tcl released October 20, 1996.

This is the NeoSoft (Houston, TX, USA) release of tcl7.5-based software.
That last year alone has seen an incredible explosion of activity within
the Tcl universe.  NeoSoft has traditionally packaged Tcl with several
extensions to produce a customized Tcl which it distributes and for which
it sells commercial support.

This is NeoSoft's 1996 Q4 release.


It consists of the following packages:

	tcl7.5
	tk4.1
	itcl2.1 (with itcl subdirs removed, includes iwidgets)
	tclX7.5.3-a1
	expect-5.20
	dp3.5beta2
	gd1.2 (a graphics drawing library)
	neo7.5.1p1 (neosoft-authored tcl Extensions, also includes db.1.85)

In addition to the NeoSoft-written extensions, we have included the
following enhancments:

1. Removed the "itcl" subdir that itcl2.1 installs itself into.  While
this might be strictly correct to do, it makes it necessary to integrate
all other packages in the same manner.  We choose instead to remove this
feature.  It makes adding other packages much simpler.

2. Written or extended configure scripts for tclX, expect, dp, 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.

3. With help from Keith Bostic, created a configure script for db.1.85.
This cleans up our installation a lot, since the Neo package supports Tcl
extensions for talking to 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).

We have only had a chance to test the db libraries on a few systems:
Solaris (x86 and sparc), SGI, and Alpha/Digital Unix.  Of these systems,
the Alpha was the only one to have problems.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Autoconf for db detects BYTE_ORDER.  Previous 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
possibly 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.

This release does not install the db.1.85 library.  If you want to
install it, go to the directory neo7.5.1/tools/db.1.85/PORT/auto
and type 'make install' after everything else is done.

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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 20, 1996: Final release of NeoTcl7.5.1996Q4

Changes in configure for tcl7.5 and tk4.1 to assist the correct config
of Expect.  (Needed changes that weren't in the Itcl2.1 versions).

Modify 'make clean' of Expect to remove new file generated (pkgIndex.tcl).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Oct 13, 1996: NeoTcl7.5 Beta 2 release

Move the  Neo7.5.1 package to patch level 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 27, 1996: NeoTcl7.5 Beta 1 release
---------------------------------------------------------------------

CHANGES SINCE NeoSoft Tcl7.3e release of October 23, 1995 (there have
been minor release changes since 10/23/95, but all features remain
the same).

This is a major release.  In particular, it is based on [Incr Tcl] 2.1,
Tcl7.5, Tk3.6, and tclX7.5.*.  Our previous release was based on
Tcl7.3, Tk3.6, [incr Tcl] 1.5, and tclX7.3b.  Tcl7.3/Tk3.6 were for
a long time the standard core upon which all other Tcl packages were
based.  The last two years have seen a flurry of activity which
continues at breakneck pace.  We will continue to track Tcl and
the latest upgrades as they come out.

One should examine the manual pages for Tcl and Tk to get an idea
of how things have changed.  To highlight a few changes and give
anyone who hasn't been following them an idea of how different
they are, some examples:

Some new features of the core Tcl7.5/Tk4.1 vs Tcl7.3/Tk3.6:
- The event loop has been moved from Tk to Tcl
- The "fileevent" command for setting event triggers on files
- The "load" and "package" commands for dynamically loading packages
- Support for shared libraries.
- Tk Bindings behave differently and sometimes incompatably.
- The "socket" command has been added to core Tcl, subsuming some
  of the TclX "server*" commands.

Incr Tcl 2.1 adds an entire namespace facility to the core Tcl.
This feature is always present regardless of which interpreter
you run.  In addition, Incr Tcl builds Itcl, Itk, and Iwidgets
which are all loadable packages.

This is an incredibly brief list, so it cannot be understated
that if you are porting Tcl7.3/Tk3.6/etc. to the new release,
there are portability issues as well as new ways to use Tcl
which can shorten the length of your existing code, and do things
which you couldn't before.  See the README and CHANGES files in
the individual package distributions.

NEOSOFT TCL CHANGES

This is a final release, and has the following missing features:
- Tcl Source Code Encryption subsystem
You should contact neosoft at info@neosoft.com should you require this
feature.

It is also worth re-stating that the Berkeley DB library build may
possibly build with a different byte order due to autoconf detecting
the correct ENDIAN'ness of your machine.

Randy Kunkee
NeoSoft, Inc.
