Squeak 2.0 available

Dan Ingalls DanI at wdi.disney.com
Sat May 23 06:09:43 UTC 1998


Folks -

Squeak 2.0 can now be found on the UIUC FTP server (chip.cs.uiuc.edu) in Smalltalk/Squeak/2.0.

    Squeak2.0.sea.bin              (image, changes, and Mac VM)
    SqueakV2.sources.sea.bin  (new sources file)

You'll need to get the new sources file (once -- it will endure for many months), and store it where you used to keep SqueakV1sources -- probably with your VM.

As usual, we're hoping others will pick this up, issue VMs and repackage the files for the other platforms.

Here is a summary of what is included in Squeak 2.0:

	More responsive cursor tracking in Morphic
	Flex morphs (meaning any morph can be scaled and rotated).
	High-speed compression and a compact forms package
		We have improved Squeak's bitmap compression and compiled
		it into a primitive.  It is possible to compress every form in the
		system, and only decompress when BitBlt acutally needs it.
	Project zooms
		As an option, when you enter a project it zooms visually.
		You can turn this on if you have plenty of memeory, by
		choosing 'preferences...' in the 'help...' menu, and changing
		showProjectZoom to true
	A Mac interpreter that now supports full-screeen display
	Numerous Swiki tweaks
	Many numeric cleanups that have been discussed on the Squeak list
	A fast string comparison primitive with arbitrary sort order
	Support for serial ports.
	Basic MIDI support in the VM.  We are finishing the Squeak level
		access to these primitives with the goal that simple midi will
		be accessible in all Squeaks with very littel overhead.
		At the same time it is our goal to provide a compatibility layer
		that will allow simple upgrading to the much more
		comprehensive support available in Stephen Pope's Siren system. 
	Remote FTP access through the standard FileList.
	An automatic code update mechanism based on remote servers.
		This will allow much more current tracking of Squeak
		maintenance and evolution.
	Complete rewrite of the MVC development system using pluggable views
		(eliminated 50 classes).
	The entrire development system (the same application models!)
		can now be run in a stand-alone morphic world.
	Two end-user programming projects, a trivial one that uses wires, and
		a more ambitious system that adds tile scripting to Morphic.
		These are works in progress, incomplete, and somewhat buggy,
		but they should keep you entertained for a while.

There are lots of things we might have finshed, or could have tweaked if we had more time, but we felt we had to honor our deadline, and give you something new to work and play with.  Moreover the new source code update facility will make it much easier to pass along the usual afterthoughts and bug fixes that always follow a major release.

Enjoy

	- The Squeak Team





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