[Newbies] Morphic, Tweak and Plopp

[Bert Freudenberg]

Am 25.07.2008 um 14:12 schrieb Andy Burnett:

> >> I have just started playing with Plopp (very impressive).  The
> >> reason I downloaded it was to see the sort of interfaces that  
> people
> >> could build in Squeak.  What I am wondering is whether the UI is
> >> built on top of Morphic, or whether it is completely different.
> >> Does anyone know?
>
> >The 2D UI is Tweak, the 3D rendering Croquet.
>
> >I'm pretty sure you could do the same kind of UI in Morphic though.
> >Just hire great designers ;)
>
> >- Bert -
>
> Ah yes, with a good designer - and enough time - anything is  
> possible :-)
>
> However, you response raises other questions in my mind. In my  
> beginner's mind, Squeak and Morphic are all wrapped up as one thing.  
> Clearly though, that isn't the case. So, are there any rules of  
> thumb about when one would build an application using the Morphic  
> classes and when to use something else?  Also, what might the  
> 'something elses' be?
>
> For example, it seems as though both Plopp and Sophie use Tweak and  
> Croquet (if I understand the email thread correctly).  So, does that  
> imply that Morphic is great of e-toys etc, but not for stand alone  
> applications?

Not really. One of the motivations of Tweak was to build a better  
etoys, and it indeed has a much nicer version of etoys, and you can  
use etoys features in regular apps. Indeed, this is one possible  
reason why Tweak has not seen much uptake in the squeak.org community,  
because it's not simply an UI framework but more. The Croquet folks  
are more adventurous so it lives there now.

That does not mean you could not develop nice apps in Morphic -  
Scratch is an excellent example (scratch.mit.edu). Possibly the exobox  
ui was in Morphic, too, I don't quite remember.

> I like being able to play with morphs, but I am trying to build some  
> applications that are more like Sophie etc.
>
> What do the assembled experts think?  Also, do you think of web  
> browsers (via Seaside etc) as just another Squeak rendering model,  
> i.e. should that be added to my list of potential UI libraries, or  
> is it a very different development process?


Seaside is an excellent tool for developing web apps with a rich UI,  
so it should definitely be on your list.

- Bert -