On 28.07.2009, at 01:00, Milan Zimmermann wrote:
Yes, I wonder what the list of "required" meta data is. I will add what I find in the Sugar document.
Well, pretty much everything Etoys is storing, see SugarLauncher>>propertiesFrom: aProject
The documentation is here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Low-level_Activity_API#Meta_Data
- we do not really need to customize the OBJECT_ID param name because
SugarLauncher>>startUp only looks for ACTIVITY_ID. In fact, the param name does not even need to be customized per activity but it just needs to be something different than "ACTIVITY_ID". Say, "MY_ACTIVITY_ID".
yes, I "knew" it but later forgot. Will change.. I am trying to think of a better name, PERSISTABLE_ACTIVITY_ID?
CUSTOM_ACTIVITY_ID SQUEAK_ACTIVITY_ID SUGAR_ACTIVITY_ID
or in Python spirit _ACTIVITY_ID ;)
- there is some strange formatting in your code. Some temps lost
there names, other methods were saved with style info embedded. How are you developing this?
Goo question. I first developed it in an image where all changes went to a changeset named mz-free-cell or similar. I just kept saving the image. At some point I file-out the changeset as FreeCell.st, and started loading it using the --document mechanism. At that point, I started just editing FreeCell.st in vi. I also globally added some CTRL-J endlines because when exported, the changeset was missing end of lines.
But anyway, "How to start developing an Etoys-based Sugar Activity" is one of the important things I want to figure out how to describe in the blog: If someone wants to develop a activity similar to FreeCell, how to start? Open Etoys, make changes go to changset, make some changes, file-out, quit, move the file-out to appropriate directory, start FreeCell.sh using the file-out as --document, make some changes etc etc. It IS lots of work just to move the changes around, and difficult to explain, probably a deterrent. Or just keep things in one image and export at the end - but that is hard to test. Or edit the FreeCell.st as a file ... If I am being somewhat understandable here, what is your opinion?
I know quite well what you are talking about, and I do not have a good answer yet.
Basically we want to deploy a Squeak application, without shipping a custom image. I think that's a new problem, typically Smalltalk apps ship as customized images.
For developing these apps we want to use all the tools we regularly use. That is, browsers instead of text editors. ChangeSorters or Monticello instead of git. Resuming images instead of loading dead code.
So I think while developing this you might want to run under Sugar in an image set up for development, and for deployment store the "difference" between the original image and your app image in a .xo bundle. Possibly we would have a simple script in the .xo bundle that just runs the start method of your main class while developing (when the class is already in the image). After deploying, it would first load the app, and then invoke the start method.
- Do you have an account here? http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4054 I can add you as an author so you can upload releases yourself once
they are ready for users
yes - milan.zimmermann@gmail.com
(but, not yet ready)
I added you.
- I did set up a git repository for FreeCell a while ago: http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/freecell/ If you are familiar with git you might want to contribute right
there.
Yeah I have a git client :) I will check with you before I put it in, maybe at the end of next weekend - large scale cleanup is needed first :)
You could fork the repository so you do not commit to the mainline immediately. See http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activity_Team/Git_FAQ
Hope you guys enjoyed Squeakfest Brazil!
Later, Milan
We did, it was a great event. Hopefully someone will write an extended report ...
Great to hear! Next few days I plan to check tickets and accomodations in LA for 10,11,12 .
Milan
Oh great! Wish I could go too, but someone needs to take care of the kids ... and this time it's me.
- Bert -