Squeak IDE Look-n-Feel

Stephane Ducasse ducasse at iam.unibe.ch
Mon Dec 11 16:29:11 UTC 2000


Still the look of Squeak sucks!!
Sorry to be provocative but I'm right.
The out of the box feeling is horrible.
May be one day we will have something decent. Who knows.
(I'm already hearing people saying "just do it this is open source")

But I'm really wondering why the blue look or some other nice 
enhancements that  already improve the basic look in MVC are not 
included in the release.

All the people to which I show squeak over the two last year told me the same.
Open Squeak alone is depressing because the look is ugly.

Once they saw the demo I made they can believe that this is worth
playing but nobody as a Squeaker with a flashy demoe at hand.



> >One of the things about Squeak that is slightly distracting is the
> >appearance of the IDE. Is it possible to make Squeak look more like
> >Dolphin (for Windows) or perhaps give it a KDE or Gnome look and feel.
> >One way to do this would be to integrate it with WxWindows.
> >
> >Asim
> Welcome to Squeak!
> 
> Your question is a very common one from new users.
> 
> In order to be platform independent, Squeak does virtually everything
> itself, including menus, windows, etc.  Squeak avoids tight integration
> with the host OS, because the behaviors are usually so different and it's
> hard to make something that works well everywhere.  One of the goals of
> Squeak, and one that differentiates it from the reality of Java, for
> instance, is that Squeak images actually run bit identically across many
> platforms.  Some of us use Squeak precisely _because_ of its lightweight
> integration.
> 
> However, since everything is written in Smalltalk, and the source is
> completely available and modifiable, you can certainly change the windows
> to look like anything you want, including simulating the look and feel of
> your favorite platform.  Some Squeakers have made the environment look more
> like Windows, for instance.  All it takes is the inclination, some
> knowledge about Smalltalk and Squeak's classes, and some coding.  One of
> the first things I did with Squeak was to fiddle with the appearance of
> windows.
> 
> As you get more familiar with Squeak, you'll begin to appreciate the
> flexibility of this way of doing things, as long as you're not trying to
> just use Squeak as an alternative to another programming language for
> writing platform-specific applications.  While there is some active work
> going on in that area, that's not a Squeak strength at the moment.
> 
> Have fun!
> 
> -- Duane
> 

Stephane DUCASSE (ducasse at iam.unibe.ch) http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~ducasse/
"if you knew today was your last day on earth, what would you do 
different? ... especially if, by doing something different, today 
might not be your last day on earth" Calvin&Hobbes

University of Bern, Institut fuer informatik and Mathematik
IAM-SCG, 10 neubruckstrasse, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland.






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