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in reply to Converting Tk based Perl to be used on the Interent

Before going too far down the path of continuing to use Perl::Tk I would read Perl TK and the relevant responses.

I'm responding because I got excited about using Perl::Tk once and started writing things similar to your problem until I realized that the client needed Perl and to have Tk installed on their machines. My tests revealed that, in certain cases, Perl::Tk will not install properly:

sudo cpan -i Tk ... Using -L/usr/lib to find /usr/lib/libX11.so.6.2.0 Cannot find X include files via /usr/include Cannot find X include files anywhere. You probably need to install the X11 development package first. ... Running make test Make had some problems, won't test Running make install Make had some problems, won't install

Once I was done answering the question, 'how often do I want to fight fires like this?' I opted for a different approach. For me, I abandoned trying to deploy rich GUI stuff and moved on to writing rich Internet applications instead. Nowadays what you can do with JavaScript has gotten so close to what could once only be done via a GUI that, in most instances, writing things to be installed on a desktop is just not worth the aggravation.

Remember that applications can all suffer from the 'popularity' problem. If what you wrote gets popular -- even in a corporate environment -- your installed base increases and so does the amount of effort it takes to maintain the application across versions. With a web application you can deploy new versions in a snap. With GUIs now you have to figure out how to update everyone's machine.

Another route you might want to consider, provided you have a small number of users, might be to use VNC as discussed here http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Remote_Access_to_the_Ubuntu_Linux_Desktop#Accessing_a_Remote_Ubuntu_Linux_Desktop_from_a_Windows_System. This will not stave off the popularity problem but can work in a pinch.

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