Jim,

from your comments, I am assuming that you're on a Mac.  If MacOS-X  
is an option for you, then the new MacOS-X VM might just have what  
you're looking for, though there is still a bit of work to do.

The MacOS-X VM comes in two parts:  a framework with the actual VM  
and most of the support code, and a front end application with some  
GUI classes.  Most of the GUI classes should actually also be in a  
framework (and everything together packaged up as a nice  
InterfaceBuilder palette), but I haven't gotten around to that yet.

The potentially interesting bit is that all the Squeak-specific bits  
are in reusable code that isn't tied to that particular application.  
 This includes Squeak's display surface, which is just a view like  
any other.  So you can create a new application and add all the menus  
you want, a snap in InterfaceBuilder.  You can also layout the  
Squeak view anywhere you want in the window, adding widgets to the  
window to your hearts content, or more (non squeak) windows/panels.

You then have to put in some glue to pass the events that are  
generated to the appropriate Squeak objects, which can probably be  
achived by extending the event model a bit.  Voila, mixed  
application.

Hmm, that just got me thinking.  It is a normal feature for views to  
be nested.  So I should be able to just simply place widgets on top  
of the Squeak view ("inside", so to speak).  Except that the Squeak  
display logic currently isn't fully view-compliant, but that's  
fixable.  Add to that the IB-palette, and you would be able to write  
your core stuff in Squeak, load that image into IB, add widgets,  
menus etc. and try it all out within IB.  Add app-wrapper code  
(minimal) and you're done.

Hmm,

Marcel

> From: "Jim Benson" <jb at speed.net>

[snip[

> Squeak has no menu bar, so that's a problem. How does Squeak  
interact with
> with an "application" when there is no longer an obvious desktop?  
I can't
> say that dialog and alert boxes are a snap, either. The very basic  
guts of
> the movie editor (such as cutting, pasting, copy, movie clip  
representation
> and manipulation) are built in a couple of weeks. To turn this into a 
> "commercial" level product, however, would probably take several  
miserable
> months and a lot more patience than I posess. This is way hard.
>
> If someone can present me a better alternative to dialog boxes,  
alerts, menu
> bars and all the other fluff associated with modern apps that  
users demand,
> I'd love to hear it. Save me a lot of work.