Beginners June 2008

beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org

44 participants
32 discussions

Good Book to suggest
by Kerry Chhim 25 Jun '08

25 Jun '08

I recently got interested in Squeak when I listen to the interview of Dan Ingalls on FLOSS weekly. So to start learn I got the book Squeak Learn Programming with Robots. Is this a good book to learn basic programming with Squeak. Kerry

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How to invoke other program in squeak?
by Albert Lee 24 Jun '08

24 Jun '08

I want to invoke some script written in perl/python, how to do that in squeak ?

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How to switch between Browsers
by Milan Zimmermann 23 Jun '08

23 Jun '08

Hi, I know this was answered before but I cannot find it. I have several browsers installed, the "default" (I guess that's the right name), OB, RefactoringBrowser, and maybe more that i do not know about. So far I have sheepishly accepted the default depending on the image. How can i switch between them? Thanks Milan

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Minimalist 3D
by Ross Boylan 17 Jun '08

17 Jun '08

Does squeak, or some addon, support a kind of minimalist CAD functionality? I'm trying to keep track of/sort/weed my stuff, and I have lots of boxes in a storage room. I've drawn a diagram on a piece of paper, but it's awkward because the boxes are stacked on shelves and distributed in all 3 dimensions. So, I'd like to make a little graphical box (either by drawing or program) and position it in space. Then I could associate some text with the contents. The only visually exotic part is that it would be nice to have a picture of the box on the box too, e.g., from taking a photo and carving it up. I could try a straight CAD/3D tool, but, aside from being overkill, I don't think it would let me work with data in the objects (like my list of stuff). So I'm hoping squeak has something. I notice there is an application called Plopp that might fit, and Croquet has some 3D stuff. But croquet is also pretty heavyweight, and it looks as if I'd need to program opengl to use the 3d. The croquest pages refer you to 3rd party 3D modelers for making avatars. Any suggestions? Thanks. Ross

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Re: [Newbies] Creating a coverflow effect in Squeak
by Ross Boylan 16 Jun '08

16 Jun '08

On Mon, 2008-06-16 at 12:48 +0100, Marcus Strehlow wrote: > Hi all, > > I thought I'd also give you my thoughts on this. While in theory a > replication of Apple's (actually SteelSkies') Cover Flow effect is > possible to achieve in almost any development environment, with Squeak > there are a couple of things to consider. > > 2-Dimensional movement is possible and it would also be processed > faster, as there is no hardware-accelerated computation and rendering > is involved. Wouldn't lack of hardware acceleration make it slower? > Although not the real Cover Flow, a .Mac-like caroussel (I hope I > spelled that right) effect is achievable, and depending on the items > that should be in the effect it would run more or less fast. As Squeak > provides mechanisms for animating Morphs, this could be a possibility. > > However, when it comes to 3-dimensional movement, it is a bit tricky > on this one. The original Cover Flow by SteelSkies used OpenGL > obviously for the effect. When Apple took it over, they ported the > code into Quartz, and later Core Animation, which are obviously not > available to other platforms itself the Mac OS X itself. So that said, > OpenGL would be required for this effect. There is one implementation > of OpenGL available for Squeak, which regrettably only runs under the > Windows platform as it accesses DirectX if I remember that correctly. My understanding is that Croquet, which is based on squeak, uses OpenGL and does so on all platforms. Ross

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Re: Beginners Digest, Vol 26, Issue 21
by Andy Burnett 16 Jun '08

16 Jun '08

Hi Marcus Thanks for your thoughts. This whole project is proving slightly trickier than I had anticipated! However, as the purpose is to work out whether Squeak allows me to prototype things faster than e.g. Flex, this is all providing useful information. At the moment I am trying to achiever the coverflow effect by deforming a polygon morph. I don't know if this will be fast enough, and I like your suggestion (and Burt's) about trying Croquet - if I can't get this to run at an acceptable speed. cheers AB

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Creating a coverflow effect in Squeak
by Andy Burnett 16 Jun '08

16 Jun '08

I would like to create an image display system similar to the one Apple use on the Macintosh - where pictures slide into view (not a very good description, but if you have seen iTunes, you know what I mean). I had a look in Squeaksource but found nothing similar. Could anyone give me some pointers on how to start this project. For example, is there a 'film strip' morph that already handles lists of images or something similar? Cheers Andy

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Creating a coverflow effect in Squeak
by Marcus Strehlow 16 Jun '08

16 Jun '08

Hi all, I thought I'd also give you my thoughts on this. While in theory a replication of Apple's (actually SteelSkies') Cover Flow effect is possible to achieve in almost any development environment, with Squeak there are a couple of things to consider. 2-Dimensional movement is possible and it would also be processed faster, as there is no hardware-accelerated computation and rendering is involved. Although not the real Cover Flow, a .Mac-like caroussel (I hope I spelled that right) effect is achievable, and depending on the items that should be in the effect it would run more or less fast. As Squeak provides mechanisms for animating Morphs, this could be a possibility. However, when it comes to 3-dimensional movement, it is a bit tricky on this one. The original Cover Flow by SteelSkies used OpenGL obviously for the effect. When Apple took it over, they ported the code into Quartz, and later Core Animation, which are obviously not available to other platforms itself the Mac OS X itself. So that said, OpenGL would be required for this effect. There is one implementation of OpenGL available for Squeak, which regrettably only runs under the Windows platform as it accesses DirectX if I remember that correctly. Another way to go is Balloon3D which is available through SqueakMap. This implementation allows for 3-dimensional computations in Squeak, and this is where it gets really tricky. For my project I have also tried to use this implementation. However, as Squeak runs in a virtual machine, this already puts a brake on the rendering speed. Also, all calls in the machine are translated into actual C instructions, and is then compiled at run time. This slows down the process more, and I would not recommend using this for high-profile 3D computations. However there is the FFI package, which allows for 'connections' to other things in the OS platform, also OpenGL. This is the way Croquet did it, and when I tried it, it ran as fast as any other OpenGL application should. So my recommendation would be to have a look into Croquet and its base, to see how you can hook up computations directly with the OpenGL implementation of the underlying OS. Then, in theory, you could create a music player that employs Cover Flow in Squeak, or a file browser with this function ;-) That's just me... Cheers Marcus -- iMac -- 20 inch -- Core 2, 2 GHz -- 1 GB RAM -- Superdrive -- Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 MacBook -- 13.3 inch -- Core 2, 1.83 GHz -- 1.5 GB RAM -- Combodrive -- Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 iMac G5 -- 17 inch -- PPC G5 1.8 GHz -- 1 GB RAM -- Superdrive -- Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 iPod touch -- 16 GB -- Software Upgrade -- OS X iPhone 1.1.4

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Creating a coverflow effect in Squeak
by Andy Burnett 14 Jun '08

14 Jun '08

Thanks Herbert and Bert (and thanks for your e-toy demo). For me, the really interesting part is learning how to think in Squeak. I hadn't really seen this as an animation problem, so I was looking in the wrong place. I will got and have a play with your various suggestions, and then come back when I am stuck again ;-) Cheers AB

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Examples of GUI programs developed in Squeak
by David Finlayson 13 Jun '08

13 Jun '08

I am considering developing an application in Squeak for the analysis and processing of sonar data. The most interesting part of the program is a visual analysis tool that would be used for filtering, mosaicking and GIS-type analysis. Superficially, it would resemble and indeed work a lot like a photo editing application, only instead of working with R,G,B values, each pixel in the image represents a complex matrix of information derived from the sonar system, the vessel GPS and motion sensors, etc. ImageJ for sonars, if you will. A lot of people would code this type of thing in C++ or C#, but I see some value in a dynamic system like Smalltalk that would make it easy to add new complex filters that allow us to do interesting research on sonar analysis. I am willing to give up performance to gain a powerful development environment. The question is: is Squeak the right smalltalk for this kind of thing? Does it have the support for images, matrix algebra, plain old performance for signal processing to build a photo-shop-like application? I guess it has been used for Robot control, which would have similar performance demands. What do you think? Maybe there is some cool stuff that could be done with Morphic to go places a photoshop-type application can't go. Maybe Morphic will suck at this type of thing, I don't know. I am only half way through Squeak By Example, and I am probably biting off more than I can chew, but maybe not? -- David Finlayson, Ph.D. Operational Geologist U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Science Center 400 Natural Bridges Drive Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA Tel: 831-427-4757, Fax: 831-427-4748, E-mail: dfinlayson(a)usgs.gov

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Beginners June 2008