Hi,
Joachim Durchholz writes:
 > O'NEEL Bruce wrote:
 > > 
 > > Hi,
 > >   Um, I think this is already there.  If I start up a fresh 2.4c image
 > > I get a number of windows, which, if fully read, cover most of the
 > > getting startup process.
 > > 
 > > One window is a light yellow titled Getting Started....  This includes
 > > a link to click to get the ReadMe.txt, or, read the same file on the
 > > swiki.
 > 
 > I have to pay for my internet access by the minute, so using a Swiki is
 > not an option for me. This is a pity, as Swikis seem to be an important
 > Squeak resource.
 > It might be a good idea to have a download option for Swikis. Some
 > mechanism that allows us poor intermittent internet citizens to download
 > pages, with an option to update all downloaded-but-outdated pages.

Ah, the joys of European telecoms.  My US friends look at me like I'm
crazy when I tell them how much I pay (in CH) per month and per minute 
for internet access.

Yes, making the swiki's easily downloadable would be good.

 > Ah. I thought it was an MVC concept.
 > Somehow Morphic never worked for me. All those colored circles
 > ("halos"?), and none of them told me what it was good for. Just clicking
 > them didn't do me much good; they were nice, but I never managed to
 > learn by heart which color was good for what. Some of them were even
 > destructive if I remember right.

Yes, you're right.  A tip here.  Most of morphic has ballon help.
Hold the mouse still over something and fairly often a little window
will pop up and tell you what it does.  Very nice.  Even nicer on my
B&W system given that the colors aren't really easy to tell apart.

 > Maybe somebody should do a usability lab test on Squeak. Fetch a few
 > everyday programmers from the street, watch them struggling with Squeak,
 > then improve the novice pointers. Squeak would definitely benefit from
 > this.

Ah, possibly it would, but, it depends on what type of programmers you 
get?  Lisp ones?  Smalltalk ones?  VC++ ones?  Unix gcc/make ones?
C++ ones?  Ada ones?  Java ones? etc..  This isn't easy :-)

 > > It does a good job pointing you in the right direction.  The other
 > > thing which works well is the class finder, in a class browser middle
 > > click in the upper left hand pane and give it a bit of a class name.
 > 
 > And then such banalities as not having a middle button stop you dead in
 > your track...

Hmm, there has to be some way of simulating this.  Yes, from
www.squeak.org:

*****
Windows 95 and Windows NT 

<snip> 

Once you are in Squeak, left mouse button to select, right for the
content menu, ALT-click is the window menu, ALT-period to interrupt or
use Ctrl-Break. (port by Andreas Raab)

*****
Good luck!

cheers

bruce


-- 
Reality is 80m polygons - Alvy Ray Smith
Bruce O'Neel - beoneel at mindspring.com 
http://homepage.iprolink.ch/~bioneel/beo/beo.html - daily stuff