Class comments (was Re: ProtoObject?)

Norton, Chris chrisn at Kronos.com
Thu Feb 10 16:06:31 UTC 2000


Hi Peter & friends.

On Feb. 10, 2000 at 9:42 AM, Peter Crowther [Peter.Crowther at IT-IQ.com]
wrote:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Disclaimer: I'm a MVC user; Morphic still isn't responsive enough for me.
Apologies in advance if the functionality I want has already been
implemented in Morphic.

I'd love to have tear-off and tear-apart panes.  Then I could display the
class comment and, if I wanted to save it, I could tear off the pane with
the comment and stick it somewhere else.  This isn't the same as a spawn, by
the way; a spawn creates a new browser, whereas I'd want just this pane,
with minimal decoration, remaining associated with the current browser.

Tear-apart would work similarly.  I want to 'tear along the dotted line'
between panes and place the panes anywhere on the screen, then collapse and
expand them independently."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The basic "tear off" behavior does indeed exist in Morphic, but you have to
be very careful when you decide what to tear away.  This behavior could be
vastly improved by creating a tear off wrapper, that could be used in such a
way as to facilitate the "proper tearing" apart of a morph (like, a
Browser).  If each significant "component" of a morph (e.g. the various
panes on the Browser) were wrapped by a TearOffMorph, then you could do some
splendid re-arranging of your tools without fear of compromising their
integrity.  

[In fact, I think the Scripting system must have something similar to this
concept, because I can easily grab chunks of script and move them around
within a larger script]

What if the TearOffMorph had a handle that could you could show/hide?  The
handle could be used to grab the TearOffMorph, and its contents, in order to
move the component, select the component (for component-only activities),
minimize the component, resize the component, etc.  A special kind of tack
board for TearOffMorphs could be constructed too that could hold onto your
minimized TearOffMorphs, to keep them organized, etc.  And, of course, you
could drag/drop/embed/release them.

A neat little project!  I wish I had some spare time to mess around with
this...

Cheers!

---==> Chris





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