TCL/TK AS A BASIS FOR GROUPWARE

Tcl and Tk may prove an excellent environment for developing groupware applications, yet much remains to be done beyond the relatively simple TCP/IP extensions which exist today. Our groupware research has provided a number of useful models and a groupware toolkit which could be reimplemented on Tcl and Tk to provide a basis for groupware development. This position paper provides some background on groupware and our own research, and then suggests some of the advantages that Tcl and Tk might provide for groupware developers. It also addresses some of the areas of work which will need to be addressed for groupware. These include the design of a shared group object model, some extensions to both Tk’s graphics model and event handling model to support overlays, and the issue of cross platform development.