[squeak-dev] Default preferences

Thiede, Christoph Christoph.Thiede at student.hpi.uni-potsdam.de
Sat Nov 27 22:29:12 UTC 2021


Hi Tim,


nice! Treated as an orthogonal concept, I like your proposal too. Maybe it would be the easiest way to map all preferences to a custom class, then we can reuse the existing tools for versioning, merging, etc. A touch of DevOps for Squeak images. :-)


Best,

Christoph

________________________________
Von: Squeak-dev <squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org> im Auftrag von tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org>
Gesendet: Samstag, 27. November 2021 22:33:24
An: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Betreff: Re: [squeak-dev] Default preferences

Apologies for being unclear; I wasn't referring to any changes you are making to the preferenceswhizzard but rather suggesting a tool you might like to try making to enable loading a preferences file operate a bit like merging an MC package version.

I agree that there are a number of essentially redundant preferences that we should remove, and indeed I've ranted about that several times over the decades...

> On 2021-11-27, at 12:21 PM, Thiede, Christoph <Christoph.Thiede at student.hpi.uni-potsdam.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Tim,
>
> I know this tool and also use it by myself. And it is not my goal to enforce my personal preferences in the Trunk image. I'm just wondering which changes would be appropriate to improve the first impression of Squeak for newcomers or people that do not spend any time going through the preference wizard or browser.
>
> Many of the preferences I have listed below just function as feature flags - they enable additional features of the system which are hidden otherwise. I totally respect that some people do not want to switch to an alternative interaction model (e.g., mouseOverForKeyboardFocus), but other preferences such as "Show annotation pane in the debugger" just look like something to me which has been added before a feature was considered stable, or because any conversation user requested an option to turn it off. But honestly, I simply do why you would ever want to turn feature flags like this off under normal circumstances. But I am happy to learn new perspectives. :-)
>
> Best,
> Christoph
> Von: Squeak-dev <squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org> im Auftrag von tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org>
> Gesendet: Samstag, 27. November 2021 20:28:22
> An: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Betreff: Re: [squeak-dev] Default preferences
>
> Christoph, a tool that you might like to think about here is a preferences file loader that works like an MC merge tool. Read the prefs file(s), open a browser of some form that shows which ones are changed, added, removed. Allow user to choose which to load.
>
> > On 2021-11-27, at 10:31 AM, Thiede, Christoph <Christoph.Thiede at student.hpi.uni-potsdam.de> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Marcel,
> >
> > > There is no need to change the default values for the preferences that are in the PreferenceWizardMorph.
> >
> > Not yet convinced. :-) The preference wizard is undeniably a very helpful tool for customizing your image, but going through all the pages still costs me some time. If there is any preference we can make more convenient by default, this will also make the Squeak setup more convenient for people.
> >
> > In addition, in many contexts, the preference will not show up in prepared images for a specific application or Etoys project.
> >
> > What can we lose by conducting this discussion? :-)
> >
> > Best,
> > Christoph
> > Von: Squeak-dev <squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org> im Auftrag von Taeumel, Marcel
> > Gesendet: Dienstag, 23. November 2021 09:44:29
> > An: squeak-dev
> > Betreff: Re: [squeak-dev] Default preferences
> >
> > Hi all --
> >
> > There is no need to change the default values for the preferences that are in the PreferenceWizardMorph. Let's focus on whether some interesting preferences are missing from that morph and on the values for preferences not in that morph.
> >
> > Best,
> > Marcel
> >> Am 23.11.2021 00:13:44 schrieb tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org>:
> >> >> 1. Windowing
> >> >> Personally, the first thing I do in every new image is to enable these prefs:
> >> >> "mouse over for keyboard focus", "open tools attached to mouse cursor", "windows' contents are always active".
> >> >> Do I belong to a minority of Squeakers or could we satisfy a majority of Squeakers by turning on these prefs by default?
> >>
> >> Well *I* wouldn't be happy with them but then I immediately load my prefs file anyway so maybe I wouldn't even notice.
> >>
> >> > For myself I'd add "Embed a Transcript in a Workspace" because I use and move both around the screen all the time; and frankly, since my first encounter with Squeak I always wondered why I have to open two tools, one of which has a totally nuts name, in order to be able to print "Hello" ;)
> >>
> >> But a Transcript is fundamentally different to a Workspace; the former is for the system to tell you what is going on, not for scribbling notes.
> >>
> >>
> >> >> 4. Editing
> >> >> - Auto enclose brackets -> #beforeSpaces (see [1], pending. Inserting a bracket pair () right before a character just feels pretty useless to me.)
> >> >> - Enclose selection with brackets -> true
> >>
> >> Again, very not OK for me.
> >>
> >> tim
> >> --
> >> tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> >> Hackers have kernel knowledge.
>
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Useful random insult:- Has an inferiority complex, but not a very good one.
>
>
>
>



tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Starbucks are, of course, run by the Caffeinatti.



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