On Thu, 3 Apr 2003, Daniel Vainsencher wrote:

> Sounds like a plan to me. Do note that this does make the new format
> packages somewhat 2nd class citizens, because not all tools will work
> with them. One thing that could help, is the ability to easily read such
> a package, and file it out, without actually creating or modifying
> classes and methods in the image. This would let package users use
> whatever other tools they wish, without loss of generality, just a
> little convinience. Easier than a parser?

Yeah, that's a good point, and would be quite easy.
If you're interested, there's a snapshot up at
http://beta4.com/squeak/aubergines/source/Monticello.st .

This should be usable pretty much as a direct replacement for DVS (the UI
is identical), except that it uses a different file format (but it does
have an Export button for dumping normal .st files as well).  Like DVS, it
depends on PackageInfo.

To convert a DVS package, first strip all the LFs, file it in, and then
use Add on the MCPackagePanel to register it with Monticello.  You don't
need DVS loaded to do this, although there's no problem with having both
in the image at the same time.

A notable new feature this brings over DVS is that it does a "sanity
check" before loading the package - so you'll be notified if you're trying
to bring a package in that has unsatisifed prerequisites (like subclassing
a missing class).  There's a lot of other good stuff within the model
(like the ability to merge concurrently modified revisions of the same
package), that aren't however currently exploited by the DVS-clone UI.

Please let me know of your experiences with this... I'm going to try
moving my code to it over the next few days.

Cheers,
Avi