Mark Wai mwai@ibm.net wrote:

As a side note, I would have to say that Squeak is not only good for learning Smalltalk/OO but a good live document for computer science in general. I think Squeak would be an ideal environment to teach, demo, explore and even change/extend for any computer science class ranging from graphics, compiler, electronic music, internet programming, networking, .... and you name it.. and I won't be surprise that one day when I open my Squeak image, I don't ever need to open up any applications (e.g. Word, netscape, Eudora) since I can do all these from within Squeak.

Hear hear! That's exactly my feeling...I would LOVE to be able to totally work within the Smalltalk/Squeak environment. I already have plans to add some of the functionality I would need (a text editor, something equivalent to Xterm, a more general file manager etc). I've already created a custom X11 startup that forgoes any window management and jumps directly into full-screen Squeak...It's more of a pre-emptive move, but I expect soon I WILL be able to do everything I need to from within Squeak. Plus, it gives me a warm feeling to turn my X-terminal on and watch it go directly into Squeak. :)

On the subject of the 'look' of Squeak...I've been playing around with other X11 environments (KDE and Enlightenment). The big 'thing' that is coming out of these projects is total customization...not just a set of background images and colour combinations, but the ability to craft the shape, style and bitmap of things like window borders. Enlightenment has gone even further in ways I won't get into here...but the end result is a mechanism is starting to form in certain groups for creating a custom look to an interface. I believe Enlightenment is being created WITH a customization program, and one is in the works for KDE. Perhaps it is also time to begin work on a set of classes designed specifically for the customization of the Squeak/Morphic UI? There are a lot of arguments that claim having a single, unified UI should be a paramount goal...after almost a decade of Windoze I have to disagree with that. The ability to custom-tailor an interface to your own liking is a very powerful thing, and I think Squeak is ideally suited for something like this. Maybe it is a superficial thing, but I believe that everybody has their own concept of what they are comfortable using...I prefer the ability to customize everything, from scrollbar bitmaps to iconify buttons. :)

Another thing: although Enlightenment is doing things with X11 that probably have never been done before, it is _only_ for X11....Squeak could bring this type of philosophy to a number of platforms.

(References: http://www.enlightenment.org, http://www.kde.org/ )

In short, I would very much like to see the future improvement of Squeak documentation focus on within rather than external. -- Mark Wai Wator Innovision mailto: mwai@ibm.net or:[ mwai@frontiersa.com] __