2007/5/8, Andrew P. Black <black at cs.pdx.edu>:
> What is the Universe Browser?  How do I get it?

The Universe system has been developed by Lex Spoon:
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/3785.

It provides a way to distribute "known-to-work" packages for a given
Squeak version. There is a universe of packages for Squeak 3.7,
another one for Squeak 3.9 which are frozen and another one called
Development on which people put their working packages for 3.9 and
3.10.

You use the squeak-dev image so your image is linked to the
Development universe.

When you open a squeak-dev image, you probably noticed 2 open windows.
In the first one (named Script Manager), which is still available
through the 'open...' menu, you have some documentation. In the folder
'Welcome', a documentation is named 'optionalPackages'. Here, you get
a description of what is the universe browser and how to open it.

Once opened, you have 3 filters which give you 3 views over the
current universe. If you go to the view 'Packages', you will be able
to browse packages by name.

Don't forget to click on the button 'update list from network' then
'select upgrades'.

When you finish selecting everything, you can have a look at what will
be installed before pressing the 'install selection' button. Just go
to the 'Statuses' view.

After everything is installed and upgraded, you will get a debugger.
This is because OmniBrowser has been updated and the universe browser
is based on OmniBrowser. You can safely ignore this and close the
debugger.

> one.  It looks like a replacement for Squeakmap (which would explain why
> noone else seemed worried that squeakmap was broken in 118.)  Seems very


Can you tell me your problem with SqueakMap? It should normally work.
Don't forget to update the map and to upgrade all installed packages
(SqueakMap is one of them). After having upgraded SqueakMap, you'd
better close SqueakMap and open it again from the open menu. That way,
you get the ToolBuilder-based version.


> nice.   No package search function , though — like the Smalltalk-80 class
> browser, or the old Soviet telephone directory.


Sorry, I didn't found time to enhance the browser which is already a
completely new version.


> I found NewCompiler in "--System--"  Unfortunately, I get error: key not
> found in McMczReader >>extractInfoFrom: a  when trying to load this package
> with the Universe Browser.  (Looking for key #ancestors in a dictionary
> containing only #id).   What now?

I can't reproduce the problem. Did you try to reinstall the universe browser?

-- 
Damien Cassou