If it was ToolBuilder through and through I could have managed (mostly) with 
no "extension" methods... that being the main grief with regards to ongoing 
changes in trunk... ToolBuilder itself has an adaptable start-point/factory 
(c.f. PSToolBuilder). As you identified, not all uses ToolBuilder, hence 
lower-level "hacks" required to theme the ide as a whole.

Though, as I mentioned, (implied?) ToolBuilder does severely limit 
expressiveness for applications since the "protocol" of allowable 
things/widgets/controls is inherently limited. Not to say that ToolBuilder 
couldn't be adapted to essentially mirror a decent set of 
widgets/controls...

Even so, there are parts of Morphic that, even with a rich ToolBuilder, 
would need some refactoring to become more flexible (a lot of assumptions in 
the the basic user-event handling and propogation, for example...)

Regards, Gary

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Casey Ransberger" <ron.spengler at gmail.com>
To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list" 
<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 5:13 PM
Subject: Re: [squeak-dev] Regarding Polymorph


> Gary, you've echoed a suspicion that I have: "Now, if everything had
> used ToolBuilder there would be a chance"
>
> In your opinion, if we went and toolbuilderized everything we could
> find, assuming we didn't have to worry about supporting other forks,
> roughly how much complexity would we be able to shave off of
> Polymorph?
>
> My thought is, we could greatly reduce the complexity of a user interface
>
> On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 4:29 AM, Gary Chambers
> <gazzaguru2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
>> Hi Igor.
>>
>> My hands are full enough with (paying) work and Polymorph maintenance...
>> Morphic itself is hugely more work!
>>
>> Were I to do things again it would likely be from scratch with a nice, 
>> clean
>> design, as you know. Of course, gaining
>> any acceptance of a new UI framework would be next to impossible, not to
>> mention leaving existing applications out in the cold.
>> That's why Polymorph has been complicated... backwards compatability!
>>
>> Now, if everything had used ToolBuilder there would be a chance, although
>> too limiting for all the fun stuff that has been done using Morphic 
>> across
>> the years...
>>
>> Regards, Gary
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Igor Stasenko" <siguctua at gmail.com>
>> To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
>> <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>> Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 2:23 AM
>> Subject: Re: [squeak-dev] Regarding Polymorph
>>
>>
>>> Guys, your points taken.
>>>
>>> This project, as well as many others are victims of monolithic design.
>>> Morphic is monolithic. And Polymorph, placed on top if it, inevitably
>>> inherits a worst
>>> from its base - a monolithic design :(
>>> Also, Pharo cut out many etoys-only stuff from Morphic,
>>> while Squeak proclaimed to keep etoys in place (until better times ;)
>>>
>>> GUI, as well as many other parts of system needs systematical approach
>>> - maintenance,
>>> support and improvement on a regular basis.
>>> Being a member of community for last 4 years i din't observed anything
>>> like that related to Morphic.
>>>
>>> Loading Polymorph into Squeak will not change things. We will just add
>>> another unmaintained project on top
>>> of already unmaintaned one, unless, of course, Gary will volunteer to
>>> become a Morphic maintainer in both Pharo and Squeak forks.
>>> Which i doubt, because he didn't wanted to do it, when i proposed it
>>> last time few years ago.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Best regards,
>>> Igor Stasenko AKA sig.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Casey Ransberger
>