a pair of suggestions - Squeak-dev

4 Nov 2009


      Hi all,
I have a pair of suggestions. The first is about the Linux download from the
squeak.org homepage. The second is about the RFB package from Squeak Map
Package Loader.
When a person downloads the Croquet SDK they only need to double click on a
shell script to start the image for Linux. This one click solution is the
same as the Mac and PC. At the moment if you hit the Linux link, you get a
VM and some instructions. The person then needs to hunt for what they need
and then install it. Quelle drag. I've created a linux.zip package that is a
one click solution, hit a shell script to start the image in Linux Squeak.
It's pretty easy to bundle what they need and create a shell script like (I
suppose) Andreas did.
The other thing is whether there is a RFB maintainer. RFB is really, really
fun. Downloading the package from the SMPL (and I suppose this problem is
the same in Squeaksource) and finding it doesn't work is a big let down.
Seaside comes with a WAVNCController app ready to register as an
application, too. To make Ian P.'s RFB work online, I found  a forum with
some code, copied it into a file, and used it as a patch. It seems to me
that this is the kind of thing a maintainer is/ought to be doing. I take it
that the RFB package worked in 2006 and then broke with new Squeaks, and
that's why I needed this hard to find piece of code. (Which I haven't
bothered to try and understand, by the way). If nobody is maintaining RFB,
I'm willing to be the maintainer. If you need a maintainer that understands
RFB top to bottom, then I'm not qualified, nor will I bone up on the topic
just for the job. But if being a maintainer means that people point the news
to me and I do what's necessary to see that the latest, working version is
available, then I'd like to help.
Chris