On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 12:45 AM, Kevin Polston khwp.01@googlemail.comwrote:
Hi
I'm just beginning to learn Smalltalk. I've been using Cincom's VisualWorks and have been writing a small GUI application (Text boxes, radio buttons, action buttons - that kind of thing) using MVC. I've now come across Squeak and have been looking for a similar set of classes (or a package) to help me do a similar GUI application in Squeak but I can't seem to find anything. Can anybody help me here - some pointers to a tutorial would be fantastic.
The GUI components in the base Squeak image are mostly implemented in Morphic. The classes are:
Text boxes: PluggableTextMorph, TextFieldMorph. Radio buttons: UpdatingThreePhaseButtonMorph, ThreePhaseButtonMorph, ButtonMorph, ... Normal buttons: SimpleButtonMorph, UpdatingSimpleButtonMorph. Windows: SystemWindow
I dislike Morphic and I don't hide the fact. It's a huge time-waster when you're trying to get things to work right. Instead, I use ToolBuilder (Google it), which gives a simplified API that has most of what I need. ToolBuilder is available in standard Squeak images, although I have updated packages lying around somewhere. There's no documentation (afaik) and you'll need to rely on example code. One day I plan to fix that.
If you want your user interface to actually look respectable, then these are your options:
* Go back to VisualWorks. * Try Pharo where a lot of UI work has been done. * Try Seaside for web-based applications. * Use WxSqueak or GtkSqueak which use native widgets. I've found WxSqueak to work okay and look quite nice, although you'll be working with old and experimental software.
Gulik.