1 Introduction

• C-like syntax
• classes with multiple-inheritance
• reflection / type introspection
• exception handling
• namespaces
• stream I/O and (de-)serialization
• RAII, no garbage collection
• (true / native) multithreading
• dynamically (un-)loadable script modules and classes
• self contained application and library packages ("pak" files)
• extendable via native C(++) plugin functions / classes / methods
  

• The Synergy MIDI sequencer and Eureka DAW
• Games
• Text processing tools
  • md - a markdown to HTML converter
  • org - an org-mode like text processor, mind map converter, and project plan scheduler + report generator
  • graph - an ASCII based SVG graph generator (with OpenGL preview)
    

• OpenGL
• Window / Event handling (via SDL)
• Math (linear algebra)
• File I/O
• Zip files
• Networking
• Low latency audio (ASIO, PortAudio, OSS, ALSA)
• MIDI
• XML based user interfaces (tkui)
  

• arm64 / x86_64 macOS 10 / 13 / 14
• x86 / x64 Windows (2000 / XP / 7 / 8 / 10 / 11)
• x86 / x64 / ARM Linux (e.g. Open Pandora, Raspberry Pi)
  
  

2 License

Software written in TkScript may use any license (FOSS, closed source, ..).

3 Platform compatibility matrix

4 Downloads

4.1 Precompiled Binaries

on macOS, copy the extracted the files to /usr/local/ (optional)

4.2 Source

• tks-source
• tks-build
• yac, yingtest
• tkanalogrytm
• tkchipmunk (v7)
• tkclap
• tkfreetype2
• tkfileutils
• tkmath, tkoldmath, tkgmp
• tkminnie
• tkopengl
• tksdl (Windows, deprecated), tksdl12-compat (deprecated), tksdl2 (Windows, Linux, macOS)
• tksdl_net, tkbluetooth
• tkmidi (Windows), tkmidi_alsa (Linux), tkmidi_portmidi (macOS)
• tkmidipipe
• tkportaudio, tkportaudio_alsa
• tkradiastools
• svg_loader, tktriangulate
• tksampler, tksamplechain, tksampleedit
• tksmdi
• tksqlite
• tkui
• tkunit
• tkvst2 (Windows), tkvst2 (stub), tkvst2 (nogui), tkvst2 (macOS),
• tkzip
  

How to build (via install helper): $ wget http://tkscript.org/tks_install_helper.sh $ chmod +x tks_install_helper.sh $ ./tks_install_helper.sh downloads the source packages and build them $ sudo su % cd build % . ./setenv_linux.sh % m all_install installs them. tested on macOS 13+14+15, Debian GNU/Linux 13, Windows 10+11 use tks_install_helper_tmp.sh to build the latest work-in-progress / beta version (last updated: v0.9.92.4, 06Oct2025) as of September 20th, 2025, tks is also available on GitHub How to build (manually): The first three packages (source, build, yac) are mandatory for building a command-line version of tks. The remaining packages are optional. Edit the toplevel makefile (makefile.linux, makefile.macos or makefile.msvc) to choose which additional plugins will be built. Edit+Run . setenv_linux.sh, . ./setenv_macos_arm64.sh, . ./setenv_macos_x86_64.sh or . setenv_msvc.sh to set up cross compiling / target platform / include+lib paths. It is recommended to set up a shell function for make invocation, e.g. m(){ make -j20 -f makefile.msvc $* ; } (done by setenv*) Requirements / Prerequisites: The Windows build environment requires MSYS2 and the Microsoft Visual Studio compiler, e.g. the free-as-in-beer Community Edition. The Linux build environment requires GCC / G++, GNU make, and GNU Bash. optional (recommended) packages: $ sudo apt-get install build-essential libsdl2-dev libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-net1.2-dev libpng-dev libfreetype-dev libgtk2.0-dev libzip-dev libgnutls28-dev libasound2-dev optional packages: % apt install portaudio19-dev libportmidi-dev sox rubberband-cli The macOS build environment requires Clang (xcode toolchain), make, zsh, and the following brew packages: sdl12-compat, sdl2, libpng, freetype (tested with arm64 and x86_64) (and optionally sdl_net, gnutls, libzip, portaudio, portmidi). The plugin bindings use the YaC (Yet another Component object model) interface, and the YInG interface generator. To rebuild the bindings for a specific module, run $ m yac in the plugin (or tks-source) directory.

4.3 Other

4.3.1 emacs

• my emacs config (~/.emacs)
• iimage-mode source code inline images (e.g. <class.png>): src_images.zip (~/src_images)
• my local emacs lisp extension archive (~/scripts/emacs-3rdparty_lisp)
  • includes ob-tks.el and ob-tks-rs.el extensions for cellular (notebook) and literate programming in org-mode
    
    

5 Examples

• tks-examples
  
  

6 Tools

• dog (API documentation generator, from 2009) (docs)
• md (markdown document generator, 2018-2024) (docs)
• org (org-mode-like document processor, 2020) (docs)
• graph (ASCII to SVG diagram / graph generator with OpenGL preview, 2024) (docs)
• minnie (vector graphics API and size-optimized binary stream format. supports conversion from SVG. 2018-2025) (docs)
  
  

7 Libraries

• debugtext OpenGL debug overlay. used by some (older) tksdl examples
• libplot Simple function plotter (windowed and PNG export). Useful for org-mode notebooks.
• libplot-fs Simple GLSL pixel shader renderer (windowed and PNG export). Useful for org-mode notebooks.
• librs Remote-Script library.
  • for executing scripts in the context of another process
  • used by ob-tks-rs.el emacs org-mode extension and Synergy / Eureka MIDI sequencer / DAW applications
    • see HTML exported cellular and literate .org test documents
• tkui User Interface toolkit (SDL / OpenGL based with XML / SGML interface descriptions (.xfm XML forms)
  • Core widget classes: BezierEdit, Button, CheckBox, ColorBox, ColorButton, ComboBox, ComboField, Dial, FloatParam, GraphForm, HSVColorPicker, Label, LayerSwitch, PopupMenu, RadioButton, RepeatButton, ScrollPane, Scroller, Slider, Spacer, SplitPane, StatusBar, TabSwitch, (Tree)TableView, TextEdit, TextField, TextView, TitledPanel, ViewPane, WindowDock, XMLForm, XYPad
  • Core dialog classes: ChoiceDialog, InfoDialog, FloatParamDialog, KeyHelpDialog, StringDialog, TextEditDialog, TextInputDialog
  • Core layout classes: BorderLayout, FlowLayout, GridLayout
    
    

8 Games

• retrovaders2 (a Space Invaders like game, from 2001)
• loadmd2 (a loader / viewer for Quake2 models, from 2002)
• equalize_it (a SID player and collection of C64 tunes, from 2003)
• gkraft (2D cave flyer, from 2004)
• racer (3D racing game, from 2008)
• jumpy (2D jump'n'run, from 2010)
• tequila (a classic Amiga500 demo effect ported to OpenGL, from 2010)
  
  

9 Documentation