[squeak-dev] Saving the default image when one starts it for the first time

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Fri May 18 01:05:52 UTC 2018



> On 17-05-2018, at 5:25 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> 
> The user experience I'd go for is something like this:
> 
> - user downloads new Squeak release
> - runs Squeak
> - does something
> - saves image

One of the complications we have to face is that a lot of Mac users are getting used to the idea of *not* saving files, as the apps do so on a frequent basis. Does Windows do anything like that? 

> - quits
> - runs Squeak again
> - by default, sees her/his modifications

No, I think if you just run Squeak you should get a default image (or preferably a copy in some manner). If you d-click on a particular image you get that image. That still seems to be the norm so far as I can see. It's like opening Word (shudder) or other apps - you get a default or a template chooser, But if you open a particular file, you get that file.

> - but there should be an option to "start clean" (using the release image)
> 
> This would avoid the "please save the image in a different location" dialog, saving would just default to a location different from the release image (*)
> 
> We had something almost like this for the OLPC Etoys release. The image was installed in /usr/local/share which is not writable by the user. Saving defaulted to a user directory. The VM startup script would check if there was an image in the user directory. If so it would run that, otherwise the system image.
> 
> Something similar could work for Squeak. The main problem would be to have a VM mechanism for selecting an image you want to run on startup.
> 
> - Bert -
> 
> (*) That said, forcing the user to choose a location on first time startup would be okay too, and better than what we have now
> 


tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
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