[UI] Morphic restructuring

[Bill Schwab]

Gary,

Morphic works, there is not much else to say in its favor, and you have
shown amazing flare for user interface implementation, so I tend to
trust your judgement.  That said, a couple of questions/comments:

Are you thinking of multiple host windows as in allowing each system
window to have its own host window, perhaps in it own morphic world
running therein?  I have *no* idea whether the world is
good/bad/optional.  Details aside, it could be nice to have that option.
 There are times when a single host window for the IDE is great, and
times when it is unfortunate.  Any system that emulates (and I am
convinced that emulation is a good thing far more often than the
mainstream would have us believe) should be able to give the user the
choice to host in one window or many.  Great idea.  Like it a lot :)  As
an example of when I might want to use a single window, imagine a
machine running multiple "deployed" Squeak images with some debugging
and image re-saving as part of the plan. Intermingling tools in host
windows might get very confusing; I have not done this, but I would
expect to do so if I end up using Squeak on a large scale.  Multiple
host windows have myriad uses, all the more so when considering end
users.

You mentioned Tweak.  I fear Tweak.  It has some good ideas, but
altering the compiler was (IMHO) a huge mistake.  I could mention
a_few_other_things that are not quite where_they_belong, but you get the
idea.  Build separate code-generating/editing tools (e.g. WindowBuilder
on steroids) to provide the same functionality with an
object-composition/code-based event system underneath the tools, and I'm
all over it.  Put another way, I like new things to be built in
Smalltalk, not into it, unless there is no other way.  However, I
suspect you are proposing backward-compatible changes to Morphic events
to enhance it, which is probably great.  What do you have in mind? :)

Bill




Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: bschwab at anest.ufl.edu
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029

>>> gazzaguru2 at btinternet.com 02/11/08 11:01 AM >>>
Would anyone agree that a reorganisation of the Morphic event system
would
be useful?
Just looking to perhaps transparently support use of multiple host
windows.
Kind of like, if an event has a tag of some kind that it is deferred to
a
registered handler, default would be as-is. A little bit Tweaky but just
a
start on the infrastructure.


Gary.

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