non functioning on Windows 2000

[jgb]

I've just installed newlisp on a Windows 2000 system and the gui version does nothing when run (console version seems to work). Are you certain you don't need the activestate implemenatation of tcl/tk? It's considerably larger than the supplied .exe.



[Windows 2000 is installed on drive D, primary partition of slave drive, newlisp on partition E, secondary partition of master drive, in case that could be of significance.]

[Lutz]

No other Tcl/Tk installation is required! All standard libraries and BWidget libraries are contained in the newlisp-tk.exe. When installing on a diferent drive then 'C' only change the drive letter on the install applet to 'E' or whatever drive you use. After that edit the file "newlisp-tk.config" for adifferent location of the help files and maybe a different location of the 'temp' directory. Make sure the 'temp' directory exists on the drive indicated.



If you still have problems, post your 'newlisp-tk.config' file and tell what version you are installing.



Lutz

[jgb]

I'm afraid there is still no indication of newlisp-tk functioning other than a little disc activity. Nothing in the task manager.



The config file follows:

# newlisp-tk.config - newLISP Tcl/Tk configuration file

#

# This file is generated by menu "Options/Save settings"

#



set Ide(HelpProgram) "d:/Program Files/Internet Explorer/IEXPLORE.EXE"

set Ide(HelpTopic) "e:/Program Files/newlisp/newlisp_manual.html"

set Ide(HelpTopic-tk) "e:/Program Files/newlisp/newlisp-tk.html"

set Ide(TCLTKhost) "127.0.0.1"

set Ide(TCLTKport) "64003"

set Ide(consoleBackground) "white"

set Ide(consoleForeground) "navy"

set Ide(consoleHeight) "30"

set Ide(consoleWidth) "80"

set Ide(debuggerBackground) "white"

set Ide(debuggerForeground) "navy"

set Ide(debuggerHeight) "24"

set Ide(debuggerWidth) "65"

set Ide(editorBackground) "white"

set Ide(editorForeground) "navy"

set Ide(editorHeight) "30"

set Ide(editorWidth) "65"

set Ide(fontName) "Lucida Console"

set Ide(fontSize) "11"

set Ide(imageDir) "/freewrap/images"

set Ide(initCommand) ""

set Ide(lispFileExtension) ".lsp"

set Ide(maxHistory) "50"

set Ide(newLISPbufferPort) "64002"

set Ide(newLISPhost) "127.0.0.1"

set Ide(newLISPport) "64001"

set Ide(platform) "windows"

set Ide(tempDir) "C:/temp"

[Lutz]

Your config file seems to be fine. am I understanding you correctly, that you don't see anything? no window? just diskactivity?



I have no clue, what is going on there, what version are you running? although it doesn't matter, most of the Tcl/Tk has been developed and tested on Win2k.



How is your network situation, do you have an ethernet card installed? are you running other applications on your Win2k box, which use TcpIp communications? If nor ehthernet but dialup, then do a dialup first to get your TcpIp stack up, then try newLisp again? From the Win2K console window can you ping yourself: ping 127.0.0.1 ?



Does anybody else here on the board have an idea?



Lutz

[jgb]

You have a correct description of the start-up failure.

Pinging works. Being connected to the internet makes no difference to the non-functionality so far as I can see.



The computer is an antiquated desktop (NEC package), pentium II, 350MHz, no ethernet, v90 modem.



The newlisp was downloaded a few days ago from the nuevatec web site - there seems to be no version information on the exe.



I notice you seem to have no uninstall information and the package does not register itself with the Windows Add/Delete interface. It would be helpful to know what it does in the installation procedure (or is intended to do) - exe's ought to do something when present, after all.



-James Bennett

Edinburgh

[Lutz]

>>>>

The newlisp was downloaded a few days ago from the nuevatec web site - there seems to be no version information on the exe.

>>>>



strange, all packages on newlisp.org have a version information on the filename and all executables display a version  number on startup. The current releas is:



http://nuevatec.com/download/newlisp_7001_win-tk-094.exe">//http://nuevatec.com/download/newlisp_7001_win-tk-094.exe



for the windows installer. This means version 7.0.1 for the newlisp.exe executable and version 0.94 for the newlisp-tk.exe frontend. The current release version no is also advertised on bot webpages: nuevatec.com and newlisp.org.



Perhaps you should download the file in the above link and try again.



Lutz

[jgb]

that's the file that was used - I was looking for version information through the Windows property page.



Is there some way to get uninstall/install information - it seems to have made registry changes?

[Lutz]

The install, doesn't do any registry changes, but just makes a directory and copies the files into it. Removing the directory created and the files in it totally uninstalls.



The installer was made with NSIS from http://nullsoft.com">//http://nullsoft.com and you can find the configuration file 'newlisp0tk.nsi" in the newlisp source distribution. I may add an uninstall and install registration in the future (NSIS supplies tools for this), this would then write entries to the registriy. Up to now the philosophy as been not making any changes to the host system, but the creation of the newlisp directory with it's files.



But back to your install problem: I suspect, that there is something in your Win2k installation ioncompatible with Tcl/Tk 8.3. The first thing happening during startup is the creation of a window via Tcl/Tk in newlisp-tk.exe, after that that the frontend opens a Tcp/Ip port and starts up newlisp.exe in listening mode (using options -p, see manual).



Have you acces to a different computer (Win 98, Win2k, WinXP) to try another install? What kind of things are installed to your system? Is there an older Tcl/Tk imstallation flying around conflicting with newlisp-tk?



Lutz

[jgb]

Sorry about the registry error - the entries seem to all be Windows house keeping, internet links, etc.



Generally I prefer not having the Windows installation used, in case your taking a user (or non-user survey).



There is a former installation of the active state tcl/tk on the system but it was a part of a Windows 98 system that recently crashed irremediably leading me to install Windows 2000. Most of the old programme files are still on the computer until I can work out how to recover the W98 system. I would have expected that they would be ignored by newlisp as merely data files since the active state material would have no links in the Windows registry but I might try zipping them or removing them.



I'll also try newlisp on a W98 and possibly a WXP system shortly and let you know about the results.

I find the idea of using the Tcl/tk system appealing and will probably want to look into the mechanism when I can get time.

[Lutz]

Yes, I also would expect newlisp-tk.exe to ignore and old installation. Typically Win32 looks for DLLs in the current directory, in this case inside the file newlisp-tk.exe. I.E. on my system I have a newer Tcl/Tk (8.4) installed but the newlisp-tk always comes up displaying the 8.3 version number of the built in Tcl/Tk. Still, who knows,  there could be some kind of interaction.



Lutz

[jgb]

I've been able to try newlisp on a Windows 98 second edition system with a single partition and unfortunately the behaviour seems identical to that on my W2000.

I'm afraid this seems to require looking at the code but to judge from the Forum activity it's certainly working on some systems.

[eddier]

I used to have trouble with newLISP-tk until I made a "temp" folder in c:.

Do you have a folder c:temp?



Eddie

[jgb]

I hate to reraise silly questions, but I've finally been looking briefly through the source and it looks to me as though newlisp requires a tcl/tk installation like the activestate binaries or some other compilation.



I still haven't found a definition of the lisp function tk but have just started to look for an implementation of eval.

[Lutz]

for Tcl/Tk stuff lookinto the subdirectory newlisp-tk in the source distribution. newlisp-tk.exe is created using the files newlisp-tk.tcl and make-wrapped-exe.bat and an utility called freewrap from http://freewrap.sf.net">http://freewrap.sf.net. You could download freewrap also from the http://newlisp.org/download/Tools">http://newlisp.org/download/Tools directory and try to build an empty Tcl/Tk shell with freewrap (there ar instruction show to do this).



The tk function can be found at the end of newlisp-tk.tcl, where you can find a portion of newLISP source embedded in Tcl/Tk.



Rather than trying to find unresolved Tcl/Tk dependencies, I would rather try finding out what is specific to those two systems where you tried to install (your win98 and win2k computers).



You could try to install another Tcl/Tk based application on those computers, or try to install Activestate 8.3 or 8.4 and look if Tcl/Tk runs on your computer at all (independent of newlisp-tk.exe) ? You also may have registry entries from previous outdated Tcl/Tk installations on your system?



Lutz

[jgb]

I installed active state on the Windows 98 computer and it seems to be functioning perfectly well.



I also tried to look at the freewrap from sourceforge but I can't unzip it on either Windows or Linux!! Makes one wonder if they know what they're doing.



Yours decompresses but I haven't yet looked at it. This seems the likely place for a source of problems since it seems very unlikely that there is anything amiss with newlisp itself.