Let's examine a Tcl script in the file myapp.tcl that should be imported.

# This is great script that I want to reuse in XOTclIDE
# Author: old Tcl'er
# Revision: 
package require Tk

# set debug 1 
set color red
set configfile myapp.conf
if {![file exists $myapp.conf]} {
    # error "can not find config file $configfile"
}

# Starting Application 
# parameters: None
proc startApp {} {
    button .re -text "Quit" -command "quite"
    # ... your program
}
... many other defined procedures

# next line starts the application
startApp

The importing function will create a new component with the name myapp with all your procedures. The new component can be seen as follows

# automatically generated from XOTclIDE
package provide importExample 0.1

@ tclproc startApp idemeta struct importExample default
proc startApp {} {
   # button .re -text "Quit" -command "quite"
   # ... your program
}

As you see, all comments, global context commands and the application starting command are lost. Comments (# lines) in the global context are not imported during evaluation because Tcl ignores them. You can use the comment importer (see the section called “Importing Tcl comments”) to add these comments to the component.

Another problem is the evaluation of Tcl commands in the global context. In XOTclIDE you should have just one such line coded in the configuration map (see the section called “Configurations Management”). To enable proper import the definition block should be moved to a special new procedure. The example above could appear as follows:

# This is great script that I want to reuse in XOTclIDE
# Author: old Tcl'er
# Revision: 
package require Tk

# set debug 1 
proc defineGlobalConstans {} {
    global color configfile
    set color red
    set configfile myapp.conf
}
proc checkConfigFile {}  {
    global configfile
    if {![file exists $configfile]} {
         # error "can not find config file $configfile"
    }
}
# Starting Application 
# parameters: None
proc startApp {} {
     button .re -text "Quit" -command "quite"
     # ... your program
}
proc basicStartApp {} {
     defineGlobalConstans
     checkConfigFile
     startApp
}
... many other defined procedures

# next line start the application
basicStartApp

In this case we have only one line with direct script evaluation and this can be imported into XOTclIDE without losing information. I think good Tcl programs should be written this way - no evaluation in the global context - anyway.

To import a regular tcl package use menu Component->Load Package in Component Browser. A new component with the same name as the imported package will be created, along with nested packages that are loaded from the imported package using package require.

Figure 4.12. Load Package Dialog

Newly created components will have names that correspond to the script file name, without extension. Any nested script evaluation or package require commands are respected. Before sourcing the script XOTclIDE changes the working directory to the path of the script file. The application will start normally. A problem may appear when the application uses a toplevel window, as the toplevel window is already used by the XOTclIDE Transcript window. If an error occurs while importing, importing is interrupted with the error message.

Procedures defined in the :: namespace will be added to a Tcl-Proc-Group named “default”. Procedures with names “mynamespace::myname” with be added to a Tcl-Proc-Group named “mynamespace”.