[Squeakland] A few new updates on Squeakland.org

Kim Rose kim.rose at squeakland.org
Tue Jan 18 15:54:58 PST 2005


Greetings, Squeaklanders -

We wanted to let you know that there are a few updates available to 
you from the Squeakland.org website (homepage, found by mousing-over 
the "Download Squeak" central circle and then by selecting "Get 
Squeak Updates").

These are mostly small updates which fix a few bugs that have been 
reported and add a couple of added features, that shoudn't disrupt, 
but are merely there should you wish to pursue.

Here's a list of what you'll get if you load these updates:

  -- a fix to a prior mouse handling problem which may have resulted 
in an error message
--  a  fix that should improve project loading

--  a change to "Watchers":

* We found a few problems with "watchers" and also had a few ideas on 
how to improve on their use.  After loading the latest updates from 
the Squeakland website,  you'll notice if you select a "simple 
watcher" you get a little more than before, i.e, the "naked" numerals 
are now contained by a tile so that they can be more visible when 
placed on the world.  Should you desire bare numerals you can 
certainly remove them from the tile by using the handles.  You'll 
also notice an improvment to a watcher for an object's color (try 
looking at a "detailed watcher" for an Ellipse's color,  for example).

* Should you wish to explore even more changes, there is now a 
preference you can "try for size".   Navigate to the "scripting" 
category in Preferences (World Menu: Help: Preferences) and from 
there, select "dropProducesWatcher".   With this preference selected, 
you'll see if you drag "eliipse's x" tiles for example onto the world 
you will automatically get a detailed watcher. With this preference 
selected you can also now drop a watcher directly into a script and 
it will become a tile.

*We are not certain if everyone will like this so we made it a 
preference and leave it to individuals to choose to use what they are 
most comfortable with.   Certainly your feedback is welcome.

-- a change to the green "duplicate" halo - to distinguish a 
copy/duplicate from a "sibling":
(This feature was previously found/selected in an object's red "menu" halo.)

  * The greenish top-right-halo handle, which may be either the olive 
'make-sibling' or the bright green 'make-deep copy (duplicate)' 
handle, will now, when depressed while the *shift* key is down, 
trigger the 'other' action, i.e. shift click on olive handle yields 
make-deep-copy, and shift-click on bright green handle yields 
'make-sibling.'
*  A further visual cue is provided when operating a green handle: 
the color of the handle while dragging the resulting sibling or 
deep-copy will reflect the actual kind of copy made, which may be 
different from the original color of the handle if the shift key were 
found to be down.
*  Whether or not a scripted player will show the olive handle in the 
halo is now governed by a new preference, 
#oliveHandleForScriptedObjects, which is automatically set to false 
when the eToyFriendly preference is set to true.
*  Also adds, to the morph halo's 'siblings' submenu, for scripted 
objects, a new item, 'flash siblings', which will momentarily flash 
an object and all of its siblings.

Please send comments, feedback or questions.
and...keep on squeaking!
Kim



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