Hyperbolic Tree Class Browser

Alan Kay alank at wdi.disney.com
Sun Nov 22 02:31:11 UTC 1998


The original hyperbolic circular groupings were done by the artist Esher --
at least "the look" is pretty well covered there. And it is not possible to
patent an idea, only specific expressions and mechanisms of ideas. My guess
is that such a Squeak browser would not violate anything. However, I'm not
sure that doing a tree in a circle really adds much to traversing or
understanding a hierarchy ...

Cheers,

Alan

--------

At 2:12 AM -0000 11/22/98, Alejandro F. Reimondo wrote:
>I've tried to enter in the Louvre demo,
>it takes 10 minutes to load the Java applet
> and my IExprorer crashed closing all
> the opened browsers windows.
>Are there any demonstration not written in Java ?
>thanks.
>Ale.
>
>----------
>De:     	Jerry Bell[SMTP:jdbell at fareselaw.com]
>Enviado: 	Sábado 21 de Noviembre de 1998 19:22
>Para:   	squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
>Asunto:     	Hyperbolic Tree Class Browser
>
>Has anyone looked at hyperbolic trees?  I find them hard to explain, but
>very easy to grasp once you play with them.  Try:
>
>http://www.inxight.com/Content/7.html
>
>The Library of Congress demo is especially nice.
>
>I think a hyperbolic tree would make a great UI for a class browser, maybe
>as a replacement for the left-most pane.  It would definately help a new
>user like myself get a feel for which classes belong where in the hierarchy.
>
>Unfortunately I don't know if we could put one in Squeak without permission
>from Inxight.  I know they hold license to their implementation of
>hyperbolic trees, but I don't know if they somehow own the idea also.  I've
>never understood that sort of thing very well.
>
>They are a Xerox company, by the way.  It's another neat idea from PARC.
>
>Jerry Bell
>jdbell at fareselaw.com
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Stefan Matthias Aust [mailto:sma at kiel.netsurf.de]
>Sent: Saturday, November 21, 1998 12:42 PM
>To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
>Subject: Re: C code for Block context
>
>
>>How does the Squeak Smalltalk to C translation handle Smalltalk code that
>>contains Blcok context? It was my impression that it is difficult to
>>program Block context in C.
>
>Actually, it cannot translate real blocks.  The translator only translates
>a subset of Smalltalk, just enough to compile the interpreter.  It does the
>usual optimization for ifTrue: and whileTrue: blocks, but can't handle full
>block closures.
>
>
>bye
>--
>Stefan Matthias Aust  //  Are you ready to discover the twilight zone?





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