[ANN] wxSqueak 0.4

[Steven Swerling]

Congrats!

I just took a look -- that event handling rewrite must have kept you 
busy for awhile :) As soon as I get some free time, I'll port my stuff 
over to it and give it a workout (I'm in up to my eyeballs at work, so 
it'll have to be later).

Thanks for keeping this project on course Rob.

Regards,
Steve S.

Rob Gayvert wrote:
> An update of my interface to wxWidgets is available at
> 
>           http://homepage.mac.com/rgayvert/wxsqueak.html
> 
> Below are some notes on what has changed in this version.
> 
> Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> 
> .. Rob
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 1. Uses the latest Squeak (3.8) and wxWidgets (2.6.0) releases.
> 
> 2. Virtual method callbacks. It is now possible to create Squeak 
> subclasses of
>   wx classes such as wxGrid and wxListCtrl (and many others) that 
> redefine parts of
>   the default wx behavior. For example, renderers and editors written in 
> Squeak can
>   be assigned to cells of a wxGrid. About 90 methods for 18 classes have 
> been added so
>   far.
>   3. Client data may be added to items in list and tree controls.
> 
> 4. More demos. Most of the wxPython demos that involve non-custom 
> controls (around 75   or so) have been reproduced.
> 
> 5. All ordinal arguments and return values have been converted to be 
> 1-based instead of   0-based. This applies to list indexes, grid 
> coordinates, pages in book controls,   menu items, etc.
>   6. More assertions have been added to primitives.  The short term goal 
> is to intercept all
>   of the assertions that may appear when using a debug build. Long term, 
> the
>   goal is to prevent any primitive from causing a crash because of bad 
> arguments.
>   7. A VM linked with a debug build of wxWidgets is now provided. Using 
> this avoids   crashes caused by assertions in the wxWidget library code.
>   8. More support for XRC. Most components built with an XRC editor 
> (e.g., DialogBlocks,   wxDesigner, wxGlade, XRCed) can be instantiated 
> now in wxSqueak. This will be the
>   basis for a future GUI builder.
>   9. Monticello packaging. The Squeak source code is now organized into 
> 5 Monticello
>   packages. The Bootstrap package must be loaded first, followed by the 
> WxWidgets   package. The Tools, CodeGeneration, and Tests packages are 
> all optional.    
> Issues:
> 
> 1. In wxMac, a few demos don't work, and there are display problems with 
> some
>   controls. wxMac is less mature than other platforms, but is catching 
> up quickly.
> 
> 2. Errors in virtual callbacks are sometimes fatal.
> 
> 3. Memory leaks are less common, but still an issue.
> 
> 4. Under Win32, the executable compiled with Visual C++ is only 50% as 
> fast  (as measured with tinyBenchmarks)
> 
> 
> Tentative Roadmap:
> 
> 0.5 Unicode, Linux (GTK) version, custom controls, GCC build for Win32
> 
> 0.6 API complete
> 
> 0.7 Memory leaks fixed, more efficient event handling
> 
> 0.8 GUI builder
> 
> 0.9 Shrinking/modularization, app builder
> 
> 1.0 Squeak 4.0
> 
>