[squeak-dev] Config Browser for Metacello

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Wed May 19 05:44:01 UTC 2010


Folks -

I finally got around to do a quick mock-up of what I'm having in mind as 
UI for dealing with the Configurations package. If you want to try it do 
this:

* Load the latest Configurations from the inbox
* Load the ConfigBrowser from the inbox
* Fire up ConfigBrowser via "ConfigBrowser open"

What you'll find is something that looks suspiciously like the SqueakMap 
UI :-) which is no surprise since that was what I wanted. The goal is 
that we derive lots of useful information from the configurations 
itself, such as:

- The category the config is in. The system category provides the 
top-level structuring in the browser.
- The class comment. The configuration's class comment is utilized as 
the comment for the package itself.
- Various config info. The list of available versions, the blessing 
status, the description of versions are all derived directly from the 
configuration.

There's still a lot of things open and missing. First, this doesn't 
actually install anything yet :-) but then again it's a UI mock-up at 
this point to get some feedback.

Also, there's no way to specify 'optional' installs. I'm starting to 
think that Metacello might be going down the wrong path with it's 
'default group' usage - I think a group should have a 'default' 
attribute that indicates whether to include it in a default install. 
That way, we could actually provide a list of options to install (which 
is difficult currently because it's not clear whether the groups overlap 
or not). But I'll bring this up with Dale and we can see how to deal 
with that.

In any case, that's kind of what I'm thinking of in terms of UI. If 
someone wants to hack along, please go right at it. This is 'work in 
progress' and by no means finished but I think it's good enough to see 
what I'm trying to do.

Feedback welcome! Patches even more :-)

Cheers,
   - Andreas



More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list