what are universal tiles?

Dan Ingalls squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
Sun Sep 15 18:04:30 UTC 2002


"Jeff Sparkes" <jsparkes at databeacon.com> wrote...

>I've been playing with etoys with my 9 year old daugther. =20
>Now I'm wondering what universal tiles are.  They look a bit different; =
>nicer
>to my eye anyway.  I don't know what else that implies. =20
>
>The lack of information suggests I should stay away, but there also not =
>a giant
>amount on etoys either.
>
>This message seems to imply it's a one way transition:
>http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2002-April/012380.=
>html
>
>Perhaps a little explanation from Ted that we could put on the swiki =
>would
>be nice.  Hint, hint.

Universal Tiles are an experiment to cross over from eToy tiles to full Squeak.  It is a project that I did with the help of Ted Kaehler and starting with Bob Arning's SyntaxMorph.

We called the project "textiles" because the plan was to actually be able to adjust a slider to take you between the extremes of text and tiles.  We took the project as far as being able (at least at one time) to view any Squeak method as tiles, and to support a fair amount of drag-and drop editing with success.

You can see universal tiles in action by opening a normal code browser and selecting 'tiles' in the 'source' command button, or by choosing the 'tile scriptor' command in the 'more...' menu in the selector pane of any browser.

At least for a while, universal tiles could be used with more or less equal success as "classic" tiles in the eToy system.  I do no know if this is still true.

Hope this helps

	- Dan



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