Squeak-dev March 2005

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

147 participants
281 discussions

Re: UI design by committee
by Dominique Dutoit 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

> I should mention that the current Squeak idiom (idiocy!) of using the > select button to open a menu when on the main display is really stupid > and can only be explained by the initial connection to Mac single > button mice. Which is another dim idea. Well it all depends from where you are coming from. On the Amiga, there was only two mouse buttons. The left-one was for all purposes while the right-one was used to bring the menu in the top menu bar, which acted as a status bar and a way to drag down the screen to see what was going on behind. In DeluxePaint, the right mouse button was used to draw with a secondary color and the user had to move the mouse to top of the screen to open the menu bar. It was practical on Lo-res screen modes (320x256) as the user didn't have to move the mouse that far but became tedious when the first graphic cards were available with Hi-res (800x600 and over) screen modes. One nice thing was that the Amiga menus permitted to click on menu items with the left-mouse button, even in different groups. So the user could open the menu bar with the right button, and click with the left button on "Find > Next", "Edit > Copy", "Project > Close", "Project > New", "Edit > Paste", "Project > Print" in one go and these items were executed in that order. (It seems that RISC OS borrowed that feature). So things were quite simple and the two mouse buttons had two very different behaviours. With the special Amiga keys, it was even possible to bring the menu while using only the left mouse button. What I have learned during this period with end-less hours passed in front of DeluxePaint is that computers feature 100+ buttons. But today operating systems/applications make poor use of them (don't even get me started about shortcut keys...). I don't know when things started to go wrong but suddenly the keyboard was something solely used for inputing text, not for acting on objects, at least on the Windows side of computing. Sometimes, a one-button mouse is working amazingly well when making good use of the keyboard. For example, if I want to wire two shapes in OmniGraffle, I just keep down the L key and draw the connection line. It even makes more sense to have a one-button mouse with Squeak: morphs have different menus, depending on the use of the Control, Alt or Command keys. Between delegating some of the menus to the mouse and delegating all menus to the keyboard, I prefer a single-button mouse with the last solution because it puts emphasis on actions and not on contexts. To illustrate furthermore this issue, take the polygon morph. To add new points, the user clicks on the green triangles, which is an action, but to remove a point, she has to move a point to a neighbour point, which is context. The first one is obvious, the second requires to browse class comments to figure out... Sure a context menu could do the trick, but then the user is confronted to many options, not actions (that's why the menus have to be revisited in Squeak as they appear to have an infinite number of options). Dan talked about pen computer and it reminds me how poorly supported are these devices in current systems. Wacom pens come with four buttons (the tip, two buttons on the side and the eraser) making it an incredible device for inputing stuff with gestures. The side buttons could be used to apply immediate and delayed actions (and not for opening context sensitive menus) and possibility are endless when using pressure sensitivity. The current PDA and other pen based devices are frustrating to use because they don't make proper use of a pen. The Newton was interesting because it created a complete metaphor around the pen input by using conventions found in text revision made on paper. Nintendo makes a bold move into this area with the DS and some of the games are amazing. Pen and voice form a pretty combination.

2 1

Are bugs in older releases fixed in newer releases still bugs?
by Ken Causey 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

I'm among the group that is trying to work on improving the harvesting process. One of the issues that occur to me is how to handle an issue that is no longer an issue in the latest greatest update but is a problem in the last update of a released version. In other words let's say bug X is verifiable in a fully updated 3.7 image but has been fixed in an update for 3.9. Is this issue 'fixed'? Or does it need to be fixed in 3.7 to be truly fixed? I realize that to some extent it depends on the issue. But then who decides what needs fixing in a released version and what doesn't? Also at what point to a release become so old that no bug in that release is worth worrying about? Ken

3 2

Harvesting Party Sunday March 6th 16:00 GMT
by Ken Causey 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Just a reminder that the next Harvesting Party will take place between 16:00 (4 PM) and 20:00 (8 PM) GMT Sunday March 6th, 2005. As usual we will meet in #squeak on irc.freenode.net. More information about the #squeak IRC channel can be found at http://people.squeakfoundation.org/article/7.html Information about the Harvesting Party idea can be found at http://people.squeakfoundation.org/article/29.html If you have the time please attend and work toward the future of Squeak. The next seven parties are scheduled for 20:00 (08:00 PM) GMT Thursday March 10, 2005 00:00 (12:00 AM) GMT Tuesday March 15, 2005 04:00 (04:00 AM) GMT Saturday March 19, 2005 08:00 (08:00 AM) GMT Wednesday March 23, 2005 13:00 (01:00 PM) GMT Sunday March 27, 2005 17:00 (05:00 PM) GMT Thursday March 31, 2005 21:00 (09:00 PM) GMT Monday April 04, 2005

1 0

How to start squeak image at windows startup
by Frank 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Hi, I have a small server application in Squeak that I want to start automatically when window boots. Ideally squeak would start headless. Is this possible on the windows platform? Regards, Frank

2 2

RE: [Maybe Spam] How to start squeak image at windows startup
by Frank Shearar 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Frank <maillist(a)sonnemans.net> wrote: > > Hi, > > I have a small server application in Squeak that I want to start > automatically when window boots. Ideally squeak would start headless. > > Is this possible on the windows platform? I don't see why not: add a shortcut in the Startup folder and have it point to your squeak.exe, having the image as an argument like you normally would. Well, to be precise that'll start an image when you log in. frank ******************************************************************* This email and attachments (if any) must be swept for viruses before opening. Their contents may be confidential or privileged and are intended solely for the named recipient. If you are not the intended recipient and you have received this email in error you must not read or use this email and should notify RNID on: +44 (0) 20 7296 8282. RNID, Registered Office 19-23 Featherstone Street, London EC1Y 8SL No. 454169 (England, Registered Charity No. 207720) ********************************************************************

1 0

[UPDATES] 3 more
by Michael Rueger 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Hi all, just so you guys don't get bored ;-) Thanks for everybody pitching in! Michael ----------- "Change Set: filePathMethodRename Date: 24 February 2005 Author: Yoshiki Ohshima Rename systemPath to vmPath." "Change Set: FontSetFixes-di Date: 24 January 2005 Author: Dan Ingalls Recent changes to support extended character sets have made it no longer possible to fileOut code with arbitrary string literals and read them back in again without corruption. The fileOut / fileIn capability of FontSet depended on this ability and is consequently broken in release 3.8. This changeSet changes that mechanism to use MIME64 encoded literals which still work in the latest releases. It includes a method that will accept the new encodings, and it puts a useful comment in the method most likely to break if an attempt is made to read in one of the now-unreadable fileOuts. This code has been tested in 3.8, and it should work in old Squeaks back to when MIME encoding was introduced. It therefore not only fixes 3.8 in this regard, but it can be filed into old Squeaks to make them FontSet-compatible with 3.8 when fixed. " "Change Set: CategorizerFix Date: 25 February 2005 Author: Hans-Martin Mosner Fixes a bug with reading class organizations containing nil, true or false as message selectors. The cause of the bug: Recent Squeak versions changed parsing of literal vectors such that nil, true and false are not stored as Symbols but as the respective objects."

2 1

Swiki 1.3 adaptation
by goran.krampe＠bluefish.se 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Hi all! For various reasons I sat down and adapted Swiki 1.3 (on SM) to Squeak 3.7-5989-basic and KomHttpServer 7.0.2. It all seems to work, for instructions and details see changesets preambles. This is not on SM right now, but anyone that would like to package it (somehow) feel free to grab this and put it on SM. I couldn't obviously figure out how to do the two-step dance, but any SAR wizard might whip it up. :) regards, Göran PS. Also sent an email to Jochen about this.

1 0

RE: Horizontal scrolling with PluggableTextMorph
by Frank Shearar 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Doug Way <dway(a)mailcan.com> wrote: > > On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 20:54:19 +0100, "karl" <karl.ramberg(a)chello.se> > said: > > Hi, > > is horizontal scrolling for PluggableTextMorph implemented > and if so how > > is it used ? > > Yes, horizontal scrolling is now available for > PluggableTextMorph as of > 3.7. It's actually implemented in the superclass ScrollPane. (see the > hScrollbar inst var and the h* scrolling methods) > > Actually, TwoWayScrollPane (which is obsolete) has some info in its > class comment about how to do horizontal scrolling with ScrollPane. > This info should be moved to the ScrollPane class comment. Self-promotion: As part of the really-deprecating-TwoWayScrollPane drive, I added Morph>>inAScrollPane in a changeset here: http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2005-January/087115.… frank ******************************************************************* This email and attachments (if any) must be swept for viruses before opening. Their contents may be confidential or privileged and are intended solely for the named recipient. If you are not the intended recipient and you have received this email in error you must not read or use this email and should notify RNID on: +44 (0) 20 7296 8282. RNID, Registered Office 19-23 Featherstone Street, London EC1Y 8SL No. 454169 (England, Registered Charity No. 207720) ********************************************************************

1 0

Horizontal scrolling with PluggableTextMorph
by karl 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Hi, is horizontal scrolling for PluggableTextMorph implemented and if so how is it used ? Karl

2 2

Definition of Mantis workflow?
by Ned Konz 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

It's not clear to me how we're supposed to map the use of Mantis to our workflow. This should be documented, perhaps in such a way that clicking the "Docs" link in Mantis actually explains something, instead of displaying an empty page. What do the various choices mean for severity, status, and resolution? How do changes to these choices relate to specific actions by members of our community? For instance: When someone posts a fix to Mantis, what is the status and resolution supposed to be set to? How does one choose between "minor" and "major" severity? When someone tests a proposed fix and wants to recommend that it gets applied to the update stream (i.e. harvests it), how should the bug fields change? Should this become "resolved"? When a fix goes to the update stream, how should the bug fields change? Should this be "resolved" -> "closed"? -- Ned Konz http://bike-nomad.com/squeak/

3 2

Jump to page: