On Wednesday 26 June 2002 05:14 am, goran.hultgren at bluefish.se wrote:

> One little thing though - could you perhaps add some little
> "switch" somewhere so that you could get some other smaller morph
> to represent the objects instead of the InspectorWindows?

I was going to but I got lazy. HotDraw used very simple lists of 
instance methods with their values, with the class name on top.

> If you are digging down into a complex object you would actually be
> satisfied with a circle and the class name inside it (or something
> equally small and simple). It would be really cool if you could
> "switch over" to a mode where these smaller "circles" are used and
> then perhaps add a little menu to them so that you can "turn them
> back" into inspector windows.

That might be nice. Another possibility is to use the MathMorphs to 
represent the objects.

> If you refined this a bit then this could really become a major
> tool in Squeak. The possibilities are endless - for example, these
> little morphs could visualize when the inspected object gets a
> message - arrow lighting up to show the sender (if it was one of
> the objects visible) etc. (using wrappers and a little DNU magic it
> would be easy to implement I guess).

This probably could be done with AspectS. Anyone up to doing it?

> Having such a "drawing" up on your model while running the
> debugger on the side with flashing and other small visual cues
> would really... rock!

I wonder if you could build this into the debugger and/or make a 
version of the InterpreterSimulator that would supply the necessary 
information.

> Such visual facilities should turn Mark Guzdial into a drooling
> fool :-) since it would really visualize objects in action for
> students.

I agree! I hope your suggestion inspires someone to do it. I may 
attack making a smaller representation in the DrawingInspector (which 
was, after all, a quick hack), but I don't have time to go further 
into the animated debugger.

> "Kudos" to a great framework.

Thanks!

-- 
Ned Konz
http://bike-nomad.com
GPG key ID: BEEA7EFE