UI November 2007

ui@lists.squeakfoundation.org

15 participants
42 discussions

Re: [UI] Native vs. portable widgets: Eclipse SWT
by Bill Schwab 30 Nov '07

30 Nov '07

Matt, I suspect the author is heavily biased toward native widgets. Note the assumption that they will out-perform emulated widgets. All it takes to turn that around is a good VM, careful coding on the emulation layer, and a carelessly written native widget library and/or one heavy on eye candy. Depending on the design of the native platform, emulated widgets can shortcut cumbersome uses of a message queue to gain a design advantage. It is not at all clear that native widgets will always win on speed, especially on "older" hardware. That said, I have no objection to making native widgets available. If for no other reason, some native widget discipline might be good for Squeak, and there are times when it would be nice to have one native window per system window - and other times when that would be wasteful. Since we already have emulated widgets, "all" we need to do is keep them alive while enhancing native widget support. I believe that should be our goal. With MVP, switching between them probably should be as simple as changing the view hierarchy to be used. Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> tapplek(a)gmail.com 11/29/07 3:21 PM >>> I found this FAQ entry for Eclipse very interesting: http://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_Why_does_Eclipse_use_SWT%3F It discusses the merits of both native and portable widgets, and why eclipse chose the native SWT rather than the portable Swing. This may be obvious flamebait, but it could also be interesting. First person to reply is banned from planet Jupiter ;). -- Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/ Help improve Squeak Documentation: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/808 _______________________________________________ UI mailing list UI(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ui

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Native vs. portable widgets: Eclipse SWT
by Matthew Fulmer 29 Nov '07

29 Nov '07

I found this FAQ entry for Eclipse very interesting: http://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_Why_does_Eclipse_use_SWT%3F It discusses the merits of both native and portable widgets, and why eclipse chose the native SWT rather than the portable Swing. This may be obvious flamebait, but it could also be interesting. First person to reply is banned from planet Jupiter ;). -- Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/ Help improve Squeak Documentation: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/808

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Re: [UI] Streams - a beginning
by Bill Schwab 29 Nov '07

29 Nov '07

Damien, Fair enough. Email will probably be easiest; Squeak-dev is busy enough to swamp us. Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> damien.cassou(a)gmail.com 11/28/07 9:49 AM >>> 2007/11/28, Bill Schwab <BSchwab(a)anest.ufl.edu>: > Damien, > > Understood, but the API can always be reproduced in terms of their > existing classes. Yes, and you can flatten the traits inside the classes. > Is there a preferred forum for discussing Nile? squeak-dev is ok I think. Since, I'm the only developper and there is no user at all, we can also talk by mail :-). -- Damien Cassou _______________________________________________ UI mailing list UI(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ui

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Re: [UI] Streams - a beginning
by Bill Schwab 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Damien, Understood, but the API can always be reproduced in terms of their existing classes. Is there a preferred forum for discussing Nile? Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> damien.cassou(a)gmail.com 11/28/07 6:25 AM >>> 2007/11/27, Bill Schwab <BSchwab(a)anest.ufl.edu>: > Damien, > > I am far more interested in compatibility with VW and Dolphin (which > tends to follow VW in such areas) than with strict ANSI compatibility. > In the case of exhaustion, it sure seemed to me that ANSI did not > specify an error - I am convinced that Dolphin and VW have it right. > > I will take a long look at Nile. Thanks! Nile uses Traits and Traits are not available under other Smalltalk dialects. -- Damien Cassou _______________________________________________ UI mailing list UI(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ui

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Re: [UI] Streams - a beginning
by Bill Schwab 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Damien, I am far more interested in compatibility with VW and Dolphin (which tends to follow VW in such areas) than with strict ANSI compatibility. In the case of exhaustion, it sure seemed to me that ANSI did not specify an error - I am convinced that Dolphin and VW have it right. I will take a long look at Nile. Thanks! Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> damien.cassou(a)gmail.com 11/27/2007 9:38 AM >>> 2007/11/27, Bill Schwab <BSchwab(a)anest.ufl.edu>: > I have been aware of Flow for some time, but have reasons to avoid it, > at least for now. When I tried it some time ago, Nile did not raise any > type of exception on reading off the end of a stream (and AFAIK, I was > using its streams vs. Squeak's). I have since seen that is supposed to > work, so I will take another look. It still does not raise any exception because this is what ANSI says IIRC. But I don't really care about ANSI anymore so if you want to change the behavior of Nile please do and commit to the main repository. Nile is designed to be easily changeable and extendable. -- Damien Cassou _______________________________________________ UI mailing list UI(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ui

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Re: [UI] Streams - a beginning
by Bill Schwab 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

Damien, I have been aware of Flow for some time, but have reasons to avoid it, at least for now. When I tried it some time ago, Nile did not raise any type of exception on reading off the end of a stream (and AFAIK, I was using its streams vs. Squeak's). I have since seen that is supposed to work, so I will take another look. Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> damien.cassou(a)gmail.com 11/27/2007 2:04 AM >>> 2007/11/27, Matthew Fulmer <tapplek(a)gmail.com>: > On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 01:00:31PM -0500, Bill Schwab wrote: > > I respectfully disagree. AFAICT, the I/O group is dormant, and the main > > list has made its feelings clear. > > > > However, there might be an argument for those interested to take this to > > the I/O list. Any takers? > > I subscribed to the io list > > the IO list may be appropriate, but the Flow list is probably > better. Note that there are currently two alternative stream > libraries in squeak (alternative meaning not in squeak.org) > > 1. Flow, which requires a plugin and supports many kinds of > external streams, like USB streams and MIDI streams, in > addition to collection streams and file streams. It is a > major component of Spoon, and is not compatable with squeak's > default stream library. See http://netjam.org/flow and > http://netjam.org/spoon > 2. Nile is a refactoring of the squeak stream library. It > provides It does collection streams and file streams in two > API's. The new API is much simpler than the squeak library, > and is incompatable with it. The old API is compatable with > squeak stream library. Nile uses traits to share code between > the two API's. It does not provide any capabilities beyond > the squeak libraries, as far as I can tell. See > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2007-November/122481… Moreover, Nile is maintained by someone who gives the code to the community and let it play with it and commit directly to the main repository. Nile has a lot of unit tests too. If you want to play with it, feel free. You can ask me any question. Bye -- Damien Cassou _______________________________________________ UI mailing list UI(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ui

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Re: [UI] Streams - a beginning
by Bill Schwab 27 Nov '07

27 Nov '07

I respectfully disagree. AFAICT, the I/O group is dormant, and the main list has made its feelings clear. However, there might be an argument for those interested to take this to the I/O list. Any takers? Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> bert(a)freudenbergs.de 11/26/07 12:47 PM >>> On Nov 26, 2007, at 18:42 , Bill Schwab wrote: > Please take a look and let me know what you think. I did not take a look, but I am positive the UI list is the wrong place to discuss this. - Bert - _______________________________________________ UI mailing list UI(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ui

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Streams - a beginning
by Bill Schwab 26 Nov '07

26 Nov '07

Hello all, I am open to suggestions, but I do not see a non-breaking way to get stream behavior that is consistent with other dialects. In particular, to get #next to signal an error on exhaustion. Squeak's #next: acts like what others call #nextAvailable:. IM(NS)HO, the others have it right. If a protocol calls for 41 characters to remain in a stream, I want to be able to read 41, and would like to be warned if there are fewer remaining. If I do not care, #nextAvailable: allows me to "authorize truncation." Truncating silently can lead to the same kinds of problems that (rightly) doomed "defensive programming." Exceptions offer the solution. Attached is a beginning of an alternate stream heirarchy; it adds classes vs. replacing them. There are no file streams as yet. One of my design goals will be to get the user interaction out of the latter. My recommendation for working out of #next's Squeaky behavior is to add #nextIfNone: that takes a block, and #nextOrNil. It would then be a relatively simple task to clean up many of the nil-checking sends of #next. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Suggestions for tests would be greatly appreciated. If you can see a way to integrate something like this into Squeak w/o pain, please let me know. Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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Themes
by Bill Schwab 26 Nov '07

26 Nov '07

Gary, I built a new image over the weekend, and find the Vistary theme to be getting sluggish. Perhaps it is the transparency? Soft Squeak does a better job of keeping up with my pounding. I am doing most of my work on a 5 year old machine with "only" 500 MB of RAM. It has a 1.8 GHz processor. It runs Ubuntu and Gnome, and is not terribly fast at anything, but should still do ok. BTW, I am hanging back because: (1) I'm cheap<g>; (2) my users will always be in a hardware crunch of sorts. The last thing I want to do is cheat by using high-end hardware only to be surprised when they have a awful time doing the basics. Do any of you use the Linux VM? Is there an easy way to get the numeric keypad virtual keys to work? The end key is a very much missed part of my muscle-memory. Actually, none of the home/end keys work, the delete key on the "middle cluster" works; delete on the numeric pad is ignored. Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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Re: [UI] Printing??
by Bill Schwab 22 Nov '07

22 Nov '07

I forgot about Sophie!!! Thanks! Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> bert(a)freudenbergs.de 11/22/07 4:31 AM >>> On Nov 22, 2007, at 8:30 , Herbert K*nig wrote: > Hello Bill, > > BS> Not really a UI question, but do any of you print from Squeak? > I would > BS> need to do so on Windows and Linux. I have found post script > canvas > BS> classes, but nothing that looks like it gets regular use for > creating > BS> hardcopy. My actual need is to print "graphics" that I split > across > BS> typically < 20 pages. > > Matej Ko**k published a cs to print as html, "Simple way how to export > book-morphs to a sequence of interlinked HTML pages". Others use > PostScript and on the mac there seems to be some real print support. > "mac printjobplugin goes to v1.4" I think Sophie has decent printing support. - Bert - _______________________________________________ UI mailing list UI(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ui

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UI November 2007