Hi Andreas

I agree that standardly defined things like forward: could be relayed
from the morph to the player using messages that do the assuredPlayer
job. I don't know if there is any fundamental reason why this should not
be included in the released image? (I wonder if the design decisions
include factors to do with efficiency for example?). This relaying does
provide trackable messages and it answers part of the issue I am
questioning.

However, this won't work for user provided scripts, as they are specific
to an individual player. These associate with a specific named class
(e.g., Player57) and so it would not be possible to automatically plant
relaying calls in the (more generic) morph class. My 'fix' (hack) deals
with this case too. I don't (yet) understand the issue of subclasses of
Player you mention (the scripts are already in a named subclass of
player and they are being picked up ok) - I will look into it.

Yours

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Raab [mailto:andreas.raab at gmx.de] 
Sent: 27 February 2007 07:44
To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Subject: Re: Why should this not work?

Robert Hawley wrote:
> Hi Andreas
> 
> If you argue that morphs are designed only for eToy scripting then I
suppose I have no point to make.
> 
> However, morphs are also used for other things.  In fact many serious
Squeak programmers profess 'chosen ignorance' of eToys and yet use
morphs all the time - to the extent that several want to throw away the
eToys so that they can use morphs the way that they want to and clean
the system up.
> 
> The transition from eToys scripting to programming with Smalltalk is
clumsy when trying to use it for teaching.  When scripts become
limiting, the shift to using proper browsers is not very straight
forward (or well documented).  I would like to be able to go more
naturally through this transition - and without having to assume
expertise at the guru level.  Given that scripts can do forward: then it
is observably odd not to be able to the same thing when coding Smalltalk
(hence my simple initial question).

None of the above really changes what I said (and which I think you 
misunderstood). I didn't claim that morphs were only designed for eToys 
scripting but this particular aspect (logo-like behavior) was. Because 
of that you can only really use it via its player and you should expect 
to find a certain amount of idiosyncrasies (like #assuredPlayer) when 
you deal with it. If you wanted to change that it would amount to a 
serious bit of redesign.

> doesNotUnderstand: aMessage
> 	"RHawley 9/18/2006 06:23"
> 	" Redirects the message to the Morph's player if it can respond.
> 		Allows commands like forward: to be sent to the morph
directly
> 		(prevously they would have to be directed to the morph's
player explicitly.
> 		Now use, X forward: 10    instead of    X assuredPlayer
forward: 10).
> 		This is useful for actions associated with the 'Press
Me' button"
> 	self hasExtension ifFalse: [
> 		(Player lookupSelector: aMessage selector) ifNil: [
> 			^super doesNotUnderstand: aMessage]].
> 	(self assuredPlayer respondsTo: aMessage selector) ifTrue: [
> 		^self assuredPlayer perform: aMessage selector
withArguments: aMessage arguments].
> 	^super doesNotUnderstand: aMessage
> 
> With this code, it becomes possible to use standard browsers to write
code in a way that is more naturally consistent with the scripts the
students have already met.

That version is a definitive improvement (though it still suffers the 
issues about Player subclasses) but generally I just don't think we 
should "introduce MI" in a singular place in the system. I'd rather add 
a method like:

Morph>>forward: amount
	^self assuredPlayer forward: amount

which seems much more straightforward for the things you're trying to
do.

Cheers,
   - Andreas