New 3.0 gamma image available for test

Doug Way dway at riskmetrics.com
Thu Feb 15 20:57:42 UTC 2001


Here's my feedback on the latest 3.0gamma2 image.  I tested on Windows 2000, with the Windows alpha3 VM.

The "Worlds of Squeak" project with the circles is very cool.  The Squeak mouse logo is fun to play with, too, and a good thing to have on the first screen.  The collapse/expand buttons on all the titlebars look good now.

Here's my list of problems I ran across... (I put what I thought were the more serious problems toward the top of the list):


Must-have fixes:

- The initial image preferences don't match the Restore Default Preferences button settings in the prefs window.  This is obviously bad.

- The Squeak Swiki link in the Getting Started window still goes to the wrong (very old) SqueakDoc 2.4 site if you click on it.  (I think this problem was mentioned before... PLEASE fix this. :) )


Really-ought-to-have fixes:

- The text in the Welcome to/Getting Started windows scrolls much more slowly for some reason, it makes Squeak feel very slow.  Something is wrong with these windows... the same text pasted into a new workspace scrolls much more quickly.  (The Alice-ReadMe window also has this problem.  I don't think there are any others.)

- Make sure a ReadMe.txt file is included in same directory as other files in the distribution, otherwise get rid of the ReadMe.txt link in the Getting Started window.  (just a reminder)

- Assuming the initial image preferences are reset properly to the defaults (see first item in my list), people may start wondering where the charcoal gray menus came from... it might be nice to include my menu color tweak to lighten it a bit to fit in with the Squeak look, which Jesse Welton and I agreed on, anyway.  (See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/squeak/message/24273 for the changeset.)


Nice-to-have fixes:

- "Search Preferences for:" in preferences window does a weird re-centering every time you move over the entry field after opening a prefs window.  (Centering of this and the buttons isn't accurate with respect to the window, either.)

- "Subscript out of bounds" error in Chinese Checkers game if you try to make an illegal move.

- It's easy to get zero-divide walkback playing the mouse logo morph on the main screen, if you resize the height or width to zero.

- Changing the color of the extra-bright Welcome to... window would be nice (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/squeak/message/23778 for a quickie fix).  (If we really want the Welcome window to be green, make it the more pleasant green of the Getting Started window, and switch Getting Started to a non-green color.)

- A coworker of mine was trying out the 3.0 image, and complained that "The Net" project introduces interesting concepts such as the SuperSwiki and Nebraska, but doesn't have a link to start them up, or even describe how to access them.  I suppose this may be partly because they're not totally ready for prime time yet?  But still, at least a button to get to the SuperSwiki would be nice.  (And the Squeak Swiki link near the top of this page also points to the old, outdated SqueakDoc page, if you actually click on it.  AAARGH!!!  Shoot me now! :) )

- It would be kind of nice to have an intro project somewhere about development tools in Squeak, showing things people might not know to try.  It could have a a browser or two open (one with button/annotation panes), the method finder, maybe a TimeProfileBrowser, etc.  (It could also include the window from Jesse Welton's PreferencesIntroduction.003 project, or a link to the project.)  Generally, I think we more seasoned Squeakers tend to take the development environment for granted, but a lot of people looking at Squeak for the first time may be new to Smalltalk too.  I think most people trying out Squeak 3.0 at this point will have at least some familiarity with programming in general, and the development tools are in many ways more impressive than, say, the
stuff in "The Net" project, IMHO. (partly because the Nebraska/SuperSwiki stuff isn't hooked up in "The Net" project yet)

If there's not time to add a Development Tools intro project, for example, it would be nice if there were a quick link on one of the other project pages to a Tools project available on the SuperSwiki.  (I guess it sounds like these issues will be covered more thoroughly in the 3.1 release.)


Um, I guess that's about it.  Maybe putting out one last 3.0 gamma3 image for testing might be good, if there's time.

- Doug Way
  dway at riskmetrics.com



Dan Ingalls wrote:
> 
> Folks -
> 
> I have just put out a new gamma image.
> 
> This includes
>         Latest bug fixes
>         Larger thumbnail of examples
>         New sound and speech project
>         Project zoom enabled
>         Close and collapse buttons fixed
>         SqueakEasy ref changed to FinalFrontier
>         Cipher characters fixed
>         EToy background fixed.
> 
> It's available as
>         Squeak3.0gamma2.image.gz
>         Squeak3.0gamma2.changes.gz
> and
>         Squeak3.0gamma2.sea.bin
> on the 3.0 directory at UIUC,
>         ftp://st.cs.uiuc.edu/pub/Smalltalk/Squeak/3.0/
> 
> Thanks for all your testing.
> 
>         - Dan





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