[squeak-dev] Dependencies on Cursor

Frank Shearar frank.shearar at gmail.com
Wed Jun 26 22:02:23 UTC 2013


On 26 June 2013 22:58, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
>
> On 26-06-2013, at 2:49 PM, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Let me offer another cold, hard example.  Maybe you can tell me here
>> what alternative will "cut it" over the Cursor?  The case of reifying
>> a proxy in a Smalltalk image to its real-object counterpart in a DB.
>> This is something that happens about 100 times per minute depending on
>> many factors.  Flipping the cursor provides a visual, real-time way to
>> understand, not only the frequency of proxy hits, but also the rate
>> which each hit is reifying.  A progress would not provide this
>> information, nor would it be appropriate to popping up 100 progress
>> bars per minute..  What else, then?
>
> Easy; for something like that you might want a simple UI element that flashes on/off as appropriate. For a slightly more sophisticated feedback, perhaps something that glows brighter or more intense colours as the rate changes, or even a good old VU meter style widget? Even more info needed? How about a rate-sensitive meter and an associated actual log view that can be checked, reviewed, saved to file, whatever?
>
> I've been trying to keep the idea of a faintly exception related mechanism separate from whatever UI widget is best for any particular use; I hope that particular tree hasn't got lost in the woods of this long list of messages. A pop-up progress bar is only one of many options that would be useful.

I as yet still have a hand on Ariadne's thread. It sounds like the
general consensus is that
* low level code like Files has no business monkeying with Cursor,
* using Notifications allows us to have a pluggable feedback notification.

For now that might well mean that we have something (UIManager?) that
handles those messages and implements the current Cursor behaviour. Or
something could supply custom UI feedback, for applications that
needed something special.

frank

> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Strange OpCodes: NNI: Neglect Next Instruction
>
>
>


More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list