[Seaside] Re: Upgrading to 2.5a-avi.3

[Avi Bryant]

On Apr 17, 2004, at 12:31 AM, Samuel Tardieu wrote:

>>>>>> "Avi" == Avi Bryant <avi at beta4.com> writes:
>
> Avi> However, I'm considering deprecating #activeComponent, since
> Avi> #visiblePresentersDo: is probably better for most purposes.
>
> As far as I am concerned, this is the first time I hear about
> visiblePresentersDo.

No doubt.  It's new to Seaside 2.5 and I haven't said a word about it 
yet.  I didn't mean to just toss it out there without an explanation, 
it's just that I'm too tired tonight to go into much detail.  Here's a 
short version:

- a Seaside 2.5 UI is a tree of Presenters.  Each of these renders 
itself using #renderContentOn:.  Each of them can have #children.
- There are two kinds of Presenter.  One is Component, which we know 
from Seaside 2.3.  Components can #call: other Components, and #answer: 
values back to them.  The other kind of Presenter, which is new, is 
Decoration.  A Component can have any number of Decorations added to 
it.  The decorations will do some extra rendering (at response time) or 
request processing (at callback time) and then pass control on to the 
component they are wrapping.
- because a Component may be in the middle of a #call:, and thus 
obscured by the called component, not all components in the tree are 
visible at all times.  Some kinds of decorations (local decorations) 
are also obscured by calls, others (global decorations) are not.
- #visiblePresentersDo: iterates through all of the presenters 
(decorations and components) that are not currently obscured, starting 
at the receiver (its callers or parents won't be included)
- the most common use is to build up a representation of the user's 
current "place" in the application.  For example, a navigation bar 
might iterate through all of the visible presenters and allow each of 
them to add action links, so that the navigation dynamically updates as 
the user moves through the app.

>  I am convinced that the lack of documentation
> (either made by beta4 or by the community) prevents most of us from
> getting the maximum out of Seaside...

I know.  The best thing you can probably do to help is to ask whenever 
you get a sense that you're missing something - as you just did.  Be a 
squeaky wheel...

Avi