[etoys-dev] Etoys: Etoys-Richo.103.mcz

[Scott Wallace]

On Feb 9, 2012, at 12:09 PM, karl ramberg wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 8:34 PM, Ricardo Moran <richi.moran at gmail.com> wrote:
> , you're right. And we should add the "decimal places" if the selected type is number as well.
> 
> Yes
> 
> Number and Point have 'decimal places...'
> Player have 'tiles to get...' ( I'm not really familiar with this)
> 
> Karl
> 
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 4:24 PM, karl ramberg <karlramberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> We should hook this up to the Viewer variable menu in
> Player slotInfoButtonHitFor:inViewer:
> 
> 'rename' and 'change value type' could be replaced by this panel.( I'm not sure what to call it: Variable info ?)


Ysy!

* The wording in the menu for the item that would bring up the panel could be "variable name and type" perhaps.  Or just "name & type".


* When the panel is brought up for an already-existing variable, it should not show the wording "new variable".  Maybe the title is superfluous even in the new-variable case?


* Expecting the panel completely to replace the pop-up menu is perhaps going too far at this time...

For one thing, there are items "simple watcher" and "detailed watcher" wanted for all variables, whether user-defined or built-in, and "remove variable" for user-defined variables, plus type-specific commands (as opposed to properties) desired for some variables, such as the "tiles to get…" for Player-valued variables. 

And "types" can have have extra, type-specific, state, as Richo points out -- e.g. "decimal places" for Number-valued and Point-valued variables but *not* for any other types.  Thus, what's in the panel, and indeed perhaps even the physical size and layout of the panel, might need to change each time a different value-type is selected in the panel.  

Doing all this via a panel is not unthinkable but, but would certainly involve more work than just having the name and type be in the panel for now.  Or perhaps the decimal-places item can be there, and can come or go depending on what the currently-chosen type is...


* If the panel does *not* completely replace the pop-up menu, then it seems we have two choices:

(a) have the name-and-type panel invoked by a "name & type" item in the pop-up menu, which replaces both "rename" and "change value type"

(b) in the viewer line, only for user-defined variables, add a separate little button, which you click on to get the name/type panel presented.  In our vpri prototype, we used a small, downward-facing black triangle situated to the right of the variable name for a comparable feature.


* One last thing.  As we all know, the user can provide a "balloon help" message for a user-defined script.  I think we should provide such a feature also for user-defined variables.  In fact, an earlier version of etoys did have such a feature, and there is even a place in the "SlotInformation" object that defines a user-defined variable, called "documentation", to store this balloon help. We would just need to add a UI for editing it (in the slot-information menu in the viewer) and then to make sure the user-specified balloon-help is used when construct items for the Viewer (in Player >> methodInterfacesForInstanceVariablesCategoryIn:).  A nice little displacement-activity project for someone out there…. any takers? 


This is all going in a great direction!


  -- Scott


> 
> I think it's good for consistency that we present just one panel to rename and choose variable type.
> 
> Karl
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 7:53 PM, Ricardo Moran <richi.moran at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com> wrote:
> Nice,  May want to add arrows to Type (similar to the way make sound scripting tile works) to invite kids to click on it).
> 
> Great idea, how about now?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> Richo
> 
> 
> Ed Team should think about Quick Guides on Variables, and perhaps balloon help when you mouse over the variable types.
> 
> Stephen
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Ricardo Moran <richi.moran at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've made the following dialog using the PropertiesMorph as suggested.
> 
> <NewVariableDialog.png>
> 
> It opens by default when clicking on the "add new variable" button. I think this solution is better than the two modal dialogs and it also makes the different slot types a little more visible.
> 
> I attached a change set if you want to test it.
> 
> Cheers,
> Richo
> 
> 
> On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Ricardo Moran <richi.moran at gmail.com> wrote:
> This would be easy to do and it would be a great improvement, but I don't think this dialog should be open by request. If I understood correctly, the problem that originated this issue was that the slot types other than #Number were difficult to find, so hiding this dialog won't solve it.
> 
> Cheers,
> Richo
> 
> 
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 3:07 PM, karl ramberg <karlramberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 5:31 PM, Steve Thomas <sthomas1 at gosargon.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 7:49 PM, Scott Wallace <scott.wallace at squeakland.org> wrote:
> Better, arguably, is to give a newly-launched variable a default name and a default value-type, and then also make it more straightforward and inviting to change the name and change the value-type, without needing to fish in menus.
> Agreed. Something like:
> <AddVariable I.png>  
> 
> or
> 
> <AddVariable II.png>
> 
> 
> Nice.
> 
> Maybe we should use the PropertiesMorphs for this ?
> 
> Also some of the variable types have additional spec
> Number and Point have 'decimal places...'
> Player have 'tiles to get...' ( I'm not really familiar with this)
> 
> After reading Scotts mail I think this dialog should be presented by request, not by default.
> And that we bypass the 'FillInTheBlank' naming of variable in the first place ?
> 
> Karl
> 
> 
> 
> We did that a while ago in an internal vpri fork: add-variable gives you a variable with a default name and a value-type already provided; when and if desired, click on the variable name and text-edit to rename the variable; click on a little "value-type" icon to the right of the name to get a list of value-type choices.  No modal roadblocks to getting started, no fishing in menus to make changes.
> 
> This improves the work-flow of add-a-variable quite a bit, and might be a good thing for squeakland as well.  However, it's probably too late in the development cycle of the imminent release to make such a change…
> Ideally we would have a group of kids we who could help test these ideas.  
> 
> I don't see a problem with waiting at this point.
> 
> Stephen 
> 

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