classBrowser

History:
    28 August 2000   Initial release.

Background:
    With incr-Tcl 3.1, it does not appear to be possible to query the public
    interface of classes until an object of that class is created, and there
    is no method of querying the "procs" and "commons" of a class.  This
    extension provides that capability, and demonstrates the use of it to
    create an elementary class browser widget.  An executable is included
    which browses the classes defined by the incr-Widgets package.

Contents:
	classIntrospection.tcl
        A Tcl source file exporting a package named "classIntrospection".  The
        purpose of this package is to extend the functionality of the procedure
        "class" of the package "itcl".  An info option is added which allows the
        public interface to the class to be investigated programatically.
        
        The extended syntax is as follows:
 
        class <className> <definition>
               This is the original form. In addition to declaring the
               specified class, information about the class is collected and
               stored in a database.
 
        class <className> info heritage|variable|proc|method|common
               The first option returns a list of the classes which are
               inherited directly by the specified class, while the
               remainder return a list of the names of the public items in the
               class definition of the specified type.

    classBrowser.tcl
        A Tcl source file exporting a package named "classBrowser".  The purpose
        of this package is to create a widget which appears as a table listing
        the public components of all of the visible classes.  It is intended
        primarily as an example use of the "classIntrospection" package, but
        may aid development in other applications, typically being packed into
        its own "toplevel" window.
        
        The procedure ::classBrowser::classBrowser takes a single argument, the
        name of the window to be created, which is also returned as the result
        of the procedure.  No additional configuration arguments are supported,
        and there may be only one instance of this widget.
        
    classBrowser
        Demonstration application that uses the classBrowser widget to describe
        the classes of incr-widgets.
        
    pkgIndex.tcl
        Standard file created with: pkg_mkIndex . "*.tcl"
        
Requirements:
    Development of the above has been carried out under Linux with the versions
    of the base software listed below.  Usage with other release levels has not
    been investigated.  "package require" statements do not specify versions.
    
    Tcl/Tk             8.3.0
    iTcl/iTk/iWidgets  3.1
    Tktable            2.6
    
Installation Example:
        gzip -cd classBrowser1.0.tar.gz | tar xvf -
        ./classBrowser1.0/classBrowser
        
    NOTE: the "classBrowser" binary appends the path of its own directory to
    "auto_path" to allow it to pick up the "classIntrospection" and
    "classBrowser" packages.
    
Copyright:
    Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
    documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted,
    provided that this copyright notice appears in all copies.  No
    representations are made about the suitability of this software for any
    purpose.  It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
    
Comments:
    paul.welton@sympatico.ca