Just a small note on balloon help and message lists -

MessageLists are treated specially using a variety of hacks, and are the
only lists that have balloon help. 

Detail:
PLMs that serve MessageLists get passed lists of MethodReferences,
whereas all other clients are stuck with passing in Strings or Texts.
This works because PLMs are semi-hardwired to convert the items using
#asStringOrText which was implemented by String, Text, and
MethodReference. In my changes Object implements it too, so that we can
already pass in Classes or anything else if a proper implementation for
the method is added. 

Back on topic, PLMs also check if they have set a property called
#balloonTextSelectorForSubMorphs, and if they do, tell the StringMorphs
to use it to get their help using that. This is generally pretty
useless, because the method gets sent to the StringMorph contents,
rather than to a model or application class. That property is only
assigned by MRs. This works only because string happen to implement some
MR string rep parsing code.

In short - so far, my changes are minimal and maintain compatibility.
But with them any client that wants specific stuff from its PLM can
determine every aspect of the item creation, so all of these hacks can
go away soon, and should. Before I put more work in building on these
refactorings, I think they should be reviewed and approved (or changed),
so I know I'm building on the right thing.

Daniel


Eddie Cottongim <cottonsqueak at earthlink.net> wrote:
> You can find an example of balloon help if you turn on the preference
> balloonHelpInMessageLists and then mouse over messages in a browser. (I
> didn't know about that either).
> 
> I'm pretty sure the balloon behavior can be maintained but I've had trouble
> with it.
> 
> Anyone look at Daniel's other changes? Those are more important than the
> quibble with width.
> 
> Eddie
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Doug Way" <dway at riskmetrics.com>
> To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
> <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 12:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [ENH][Refactor] PLMCleanUpStart (v2)
> 
> > Just to throw in my 2 cents again, I think we really should get rid of
> > the width: 9999 if at all reasonably possible.  It sounds like Eddie's
> > changeset maintains the highlight-the-whole-line behavior, which I
> > agree would be good to keep.
> >
> > For the balloon help, IMHO I think it would be reasonable if you had to
> > hover over the string itself, if it proves to messy to maintain the
> > current behavior of hovering anywhere on the line.  (Actually I'm
> > having trouble finding a place in the image where balloon help is used
> > on PLM strings...)
> >
> > - Doug
> >
> >
> > > Daniel
> > >
> > > Bob Arning <arning at charm.net> wrote:
> > >> On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 14:51:17 +0300 Daniel Vainsencher
> > >> <danielv at netvision.net.il> wrote:
> > >>> [how wide the StringMorphs should be made]
> > >>> This part of the thread is moot. As Eddie said, removing the
> > >>> #width: call completely is the correct solution. It is no
> > >>> longer needed, and selection just works.
> > >>
> > >> It may be a matter of personal taste, but limiting the highlighting
> > >> width to that of the characters in the string doesn't seem like an
> > >> improvement. The same shortcoming applies to balloon help on list
> > >> items.
> > >>
> > >> Cheers,
> > >> Bob
> >
> >
> >