Who should attend: Tcl/Tk programmers interested in multi-user applications (groupware) and how to quickly build them using GroupKit. No prior experience with groupware is assumed, but you do need to know how to program in Tcl/Tk.

What you will learn: You will gain exposure to GroupKit, a Tcl/Tk extension for building multi-user applications, such as shared whiteboards, meeting tools, and network games.

This tutorial introduces GroupKit, a Tcl/Tk extension used in the groupware community. Besides letting you build stand-alone groupware applications, its API is used to create applets for the TeamWave Workplace system.

Groupware is a novel and fun application domain that is gaining popularity, andTcl/Tk is particularly well-suited to building groupware. GroupKit can let you easily take your single-user programs and turn them into groupware. Topics include:

- An introduction to groupware applications and concepts

- A walk-through of a simple GroupKit application

- GroupKit primitives: remote procedures, events, environments

- Groupware-specific user interface widgets

- Issues in groupware usability

Mark Roseman is founder and president of TeamWave Software, Ltd., which develops TeamWave Workplace, a cross-platform Internet groupware environment based on Tcl/Tk. He is also the creator of GroupKit, developed at the University of Calgary.

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