--On May 6, 2007 8:41:26 PM -0700 Dan Ingalls <Dan at SqueakLand.org> wrote:

> While it does not produce a polygon, you might well find
> <Rectangle>areasOutside: <Rectangle> to be a useful first step.

Many thanks for all the replies on this topic! Dan, the areasOutside: 
method gives me everything I need. Thanks for the tip!

I don't really need a PolygonMorph per se -- having a collection of 
rectangles works fine.

Since I've been asked what the application is, it's time to seriously 
delurk. The application here is for interactive poetry. You can get a look 
at what I'm up to here:

<http://www.well.com/user/jer/inframergence/readMe.html>

(This is a fragment of a large work in progress.)

To summarize the problem: I have a class of my own that has "special 
behavior" and forms a rectangular mouseEnter hot-spot. I'm forming a chain 
of these things in which mouse entry pops up the next and previous entry in 
the chain. These are heavily overlaid, and I need to form "event blocker" 
skirts which inhibit other objects that are not part of the current chain. 
I've been doing this using the merge of the current rectangle with the next 
and previous one in the chain. This works fine as long as the areas don't 
overlap, but when they overlap it is trouble -- I get flashing behavior. 
(The next and previous elements of the chain are brought in front of the 
the current one.) Thus far this has not been a problem, but for esthetic 
reasons, I will need to move to overlapping elements and thus needed a 
solution to this problem. So, the real problem is to make my event blocker 
skirts omit the next and previous elements, and that way the current 
element can be on top -- no flashing.

I have this all working now, and the code is very simple.

* * *

More generally: there are many of us in the world doing digital poetry, but 
I am the only one I know of using Squeak. Morphic has turned out to be 
exactly the paradigm I had been looking for for years! If you're curious, I 
have a completed work available on the web here:

<http://www.well.com/user/jer/inter_works.html#d6>

I have a technical description of some of the issues related to this work 
in a paper titled "Hypertext in the Open Air: A Systemless Approach to 
Spatial Hypertext" presented at the 3rd Workshop on Spatial Hypertext here:

<http://www.well.com/user/jer/SH3.pdf>

and a more literary essay giving the motivation of my Squeak work here:

<http://www.well.com/user/jer/q2m.html>

Squeak / Morphic have been a dream come true for me, quite literally. Thank 
you to everyone in the Squeak community, you are wonderful!!

---
 Jim Rosenberg                      http://www.well.com/user/jer/
     Internet: jr at amanue.com