Hi Stef...
Hi diego
I do not have the time to look carefully, but is it the equivalent of the displayString in VisualWorks? In VW you have printString for "looking at the object in the debugger, inspector" and displayString to get a string when the object is displayed in list.
I'm not the expert here so what I'll say is pure-guessing based on my understanding.
What is the difference between asStringOrtext and printString? If this is the VW displayString intention maybe we should call it in a similar way to convey its precise intent and fix the widgets.
In Squeak we have not #displayString, we have #printString (and related like #fullPrintString, #printStringLimitedTo:, etc) and #asString.
#asString is only a conversion message (not a printing one), to see to see the difference evaluate:
'Squeak' printString. 'Squeak' asString.
The message in question (#asStringOrText) is a conversion method but take care of the 'OrText' part. The receiver can choose to answer a plain String or a Text (a String with formatting).
In the current version of Squeak you can find this message implemented in: String and Text (with ^ self) and in MethodReference (I guess, the only user of this idiom).
My [ENH] just generalizes this idiom in Object.
Stef
I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Diego
PS: How the French translation is progressing?