<div dir="ltr"><div>Hmph, I often hit send too soon...</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Nov 30, 2019 at 1:03 PM Eliot Miranda <<a href="mailto:eliot.miranda@gmail.com">eliot.miranda@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Hi All,<div><br></div><div> Clément and I were talking earlier today (about issues around the solving of issue 444) and later on we talked a it about UI. It has been a goal of Tudor Girba to have a VMMaker that uses the Glamorous Toolkit for richer inspection facilities, a project than makes sense to me too. But it is one I have failed to contribute to because of issues I have with Pharo. However, richer inspection could be implemented in Squeak too, without taking on the task of porting GT to Squeak (a worth-while project I encourage anyone interested to consider).</div><div><br></div><div>So what would be required to do something slick in Squeak? I'm hacking up a few ideas right now but there are some things I'd like, and I'm not sure of how to get them, hence my sending the message here and cc'ing Marcel.</div><div><br></div><div>One thing is handling double click in text so that it triggers not a selection, but some semantic action. I'm imagining a three column inspector where on the left are the inst vars of a VM object, such as the interpreter. In the next column is a default display of the selected inst var, for example, the output of the print: routine, which for the specialObjectsArray looks like this:</div><div><br></div><div><div>16r2FAF998: a(n) Array</div><div> 16r734500 nil 16r734510 false 16r734520 true 16rD09B20 a Global #Processor -> 16r00745CD8</div><div> 16rB01D20 class Bitmap 16r124FCB8 class SmallInteger 16rB02140 class ByteString 16rB01C00 class Array</div><div> 16rB4D228 a SmalltalkImage 16r106E708 class BoxedFloat64 16rB05380 class Context 16r734500 nil</div><div> 16rB04BA0 class Point 16rAFF358 class LargePositiveInteger 16r780B30 a DisplayScreen 16rB00018 class Message</div><div> 16rB01F00 class CompiledMethod 16r2000B8 a Semaphore 16rB02440 class Semaphore 16rAFF4D8 class Character</div><div> 16r93F0A8 #doesNotUnderstand: 16r93F0C8 #cannotReturn: 16r734500 nil 16r241C998 an Array</div><div> 16r734500 nil 16r93F0E0 #mustBeBoolean 16rB01FC0 class ByteArray 16r116E800 class Process</div><div> 16r2FB10B8 an Array 16r1365050 a Semaphore 16r100048 a Semaphore 16r734500 nil</div><div> 16r734500 nil 16r734500 nil 16r980DF8 #cannotInterpret: 16r734500 nil</div><div> 16rB192C0 class BlockClosure 16r734500 nil 16r100068 an Array 16r734500 nil</div><div> 16r10AB350 a LinkedList 16r759080 a Semaphore 16rAFF2F8 class LargeNegativeInteger 16r2F82230 class ExternalAddress</div><div> 16r2F820E8 class ExternalStructure 16r2F82D00 class ExternalData 16r2F88508 class ExternalFunction 16r2F82950 class ExternalLibrary</div><div> 16r9B2090 #aboutToReturn:through: 16r9CB820 #run:with:in: 16r10BBBD0 #attemptToAssign:withIndex: 16r2FB10C8 an Array</div><div> 16r2F4DF88 class Alien 16r10BBD20 #invokeCallbackContext: 16r2F51228 class UnsafeAlien 16r734500 nil</div><div> 16r734500 nil 16rCE3570 #unusedBytecode 16r10BBBA0 #conditionalBranchCounterTrippedOn: 16r10BAB98 #classTrapFor:</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>One obvious idea is to have a special menu constructed for the selected item, so that in the text pane, when something is selected, instead of the default "set font.../set style.../...copy (c)/cut (x)..." text menu one gets a menu populated from pragmas in the Vm classes, which might include printOop:. shortPrintOop:, printFrame:, etc, (and of course copy, but not cut/paste), and that these would output to the sub-inspector in the column to the right, which ideally would cascade.</div><div><br></div><div>With the right pragma design we could render tis both in Squeak and in GT, and (as I'm doing in my prototyping) the Squeak-specific UI goes in its own package (VMMakerUI-Squeak) so that while the pragmas are common to both Squeak and Pharo, a Pharo VMMaker isn't polluted with Squeak UI gizmos.</div><div><br></div><div>[yes, this effort at cross-platform portability is probably moot given Pharo's forking of the VM, but we can always hope that good sense prevails and we are able to work together once again]</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>Then in the third column would be a sub-inspector, so that if one double-clicked in an oops in the above display, that would be displayed in the third column. Ideally the inspectors would cascade like they do in GT. But for the moment I'd be happy with anything that doesn't require copy/pasting oops (the hex numbers above) into dialog boxes to print further info in the transcript window in a simulation.</div><div><br></div><div>So Marcel (& others who are interested), at the most basic level, how would one add a double-click action to our current Inspector framework to enable that kind of interaction?</div><div><br></div><div>How would one build a cascading Inspector as per GT?</div><div><br></div><div>And as impetus, this UI will help us develop the VM faster, and that will get you, in time, a faster VM.<br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="font-size:small;border-collapse:separate"><div>_,,,^..^,,,_<br></div><div>best, Eliot</div></span></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="font-size:small;border-collapse:separate"><div>_,,,^..^,,,_<br></div><div>best, Eliot</div></span></div></div></div></div>