Tkabber Starpack is a binary file that contains Tkabber, Tcl/Tk, and all other required packages to run Tkabber. So, with this Starpack you do not need to install anything on your computer to use Tkabber. It's also really lightweight, less than 5 megs of download.
This Tkabber Starpack is based on previous work from Kroc and Pat: Tkabber Starkit (homepage). Also colaborated on those Starpacks: Ruslan Rakhmanin (archimed), Pat Thoyts, and Konstantin Khomoutov (kostix).
Included
- Tkabber 0.10.0
- Tkabber plugins 0.10.0
- Tcl/Tk 8.4.13
- BWidget 1.8.0
- Tcllib
- Tk_theme 23
- Tls 1.5
- Tcl UDP 1.0.8
Not included
- Snack - If you want to have sound in Tkabber, download snack.kit to the same directory that the Tkabber Starpack.
- Img - If you want support for additional image files, download img.kit to the same directory that the Tkabber Starpack.
- tclGPGme
Recommended download
Downloads archive
- Tkabber Starpack 0.10.0 for Microsoft Windows
- Tkabber Starpack 0.10.0 for GNU/Linux x86
- Tkabber Starpack 0.9.9 for Microsoft Windows
- Tkabber Starpack 0.9.9 for GNU/Linux x86
- Tkabber Starpack 0.9.8 for GNU/Linux x86
Version-Independent Download Link
I think it would be nice to have a version-independent download link included here, like http://tkabber.jabber.ru/files/tkabber-starpack/Tkabber-Starpack-Windows.exe, which would redirect to the most-recent version-dependent link upon download.
The advantage is that such a link won't outdate. As we've seen on our product, users like to include a direct download link into their sites when telling about the product. Those who use it would download an outdated version for a long time even if a new version is available. If the link is version-independent, they'll always get the up-to-date stuff.
Tcl/Tk 8.5a4
The linux Starpack 0.10.0 includes Tcl/Tk 8.5a4 so fonts are looking rather good!
Xft support
TrueType fonts cannot by definition look better than well-crafted bitmap fonts matching the display's DPI.
And not all people can live with anti-aliasing, for example (while it can be switched off in Xft), so the Xft approach has its downsides.
On the other hand, it has its pros, too. Including better support for non-Latin-1 symbols in Tk.
And anyway Xft is the current trend on Linux desktops, so we have decided to move to 8.5 there. ;)
Missing libstdc++.so.5
Another thing that the Linux package does not include is libstdc++.so.5. I have the libstdc++ package installed on my system however it does not seem to include this file. It has /usr/lib/libstdc++.so, /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 and /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.10. Might I suggest that the package is linked with /usr/lib/libstdc++.so for better compatibility.
Re: Missing libstdc++.so.5
Technically you're correct, but the real problem is that the word "binary" conflicts with the word "Linux" in essense.
We'll probably base the starpack for ongoing 0.11.0 on the new tclkit technology called "kitgen" -- it uses Vlerq (written in C) for in-memory database instead of Metakit (written in C++ and creating the dependency we're discussing), so the resulting package will depend only on glibc.
Unfortunately, dependance on glibc poses it's own problem (incompatibilities were reported), but this one is inescapable.
Another option is to create binary package using TkWrap fork of Freewrap, AFAIK, it uses ZIP for in-memory database and thus also contains no C++ code.