A summary of a few recent projects

danielv at netvision.net.il danielv at netvision.net.il
Sun Oct 6 20:46:45 UTC 2002


Or, for those who're maybe wondering "what's all that noise with
SqueakMap, ModuleFiler, Dynamic menus and that Spaghetti thing?"

Well, they're all basically projects geared to make Squeak more friendly
to packages living outside the standard image, and the people that write
them and use them.

This is quite independent and complementary to having a modules system, 
and can help Squeak shrink.

I'll explain SqueakMap first -

People used to unix machines find it quite normal that they have to
compile new packages for their computer.

Windows users are quite used to popping a CD in, pressing next.next.next
and having it appear, if they happen to have what's needed, and nothing
gets fubared.

Debian (a linux distribution) people bring up a dizzying menu with >8000
packages, select what they want, from a new kernel version, to a
shoot-em-up to an astronomy package, ask for them to be installed, and
drink coffee while everything is downloaded automatically from a central
server, where everything is (more or less) up to date, including
whatever libraries are needed, configured and installed.

In none of the above systems do most users have the same precise
applications installed... people can and do choose what tools and games
they like to have available, and there's a standard, common way to
realize their choice.

SqueakMap makes Squeak a little like Debian. Open a Morphic package
browser - you get an open list of packages, updateable on the web. As
many as have a proper download Url, can be installed by select&click.

So if you like Whisker or the Refactoring Browser, you can install it as
easy as pie, without any sort of searching at all.

If you're a new Squeaker, you can see what's available very easily, and
try things out.

If you're developing something neat and want to get feedback beyond the
next few days after you announce it on the list, post a SqueakMap
description, with a convinient download page, and you're set.

If you want to try out SqueakMap, you should wait to Gorans next (6th)
release, and use either his package browser, or my simpler, more limited
one.

If you want to try it NOW, use release 5, which works just fine but
requires a little manual work to install -
* unzip
http://anakin.bluefish.se:8000/gohu/uploads/11/squeakmap-020924.zip
* run sminstall-mini.st
* unzip and filein
http://anakin.bluefish.se:8000/gohu/uploads/11/SqueakMapFix-020924.cs.gz
* SMSqueakMapBrowser open

To use my package loader, also do
* filein
http://modules.squeakfoundation.org/People/dvf/Packages/SM-Loader.st
* SMLoader open

Either tool will display a list of packages. Pick one and see it's
details, if it has a download url, you can download/install it with a
couple of clicks. You're welcome to try it out. If you want to browse
the web UI, go to http://marvin.bluefish.se:8000/sm. You can also
register your own package there, it's just a form you need to fill out.

The idea is to get SqueakMap + a simple package loader into 3.2, so
people can then easily load anything they want.

This mail is already too long.
Next - DynamicOpenMenu, but that's tommorrow.

Daniel Vainsencher
PS. if I've left anything out, or you have any questions, please ask
on-list or off.



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