Independent window (Re: Native GUI Squeak?)

Doug Way dway at riskmetrics.com
Sun Feb 18 05:35:24 UTC 2001


Rick wrote:
> 
> Now, I would like to know if an application built with Squeak can run
> 'standalone', with only its own window  - how? - or it always must run inside a
> Squeak window.

Technically, Squeak can currently run 'standalone', with only its own window, as long as you don't need to open any other native OS windows. :-)  Simply create your application so that it fills up the Squeak window, and don't use any of the inside-Squeak SystemWindows.

It sounds like you're really asking whether Squeak can open more than one native OS window at a time, and currently it cannot... however, it sounds like some progress is being made in this area recently (see responses on this thread from Tim Rowledge and Marcel Weiher), so we may see this capability at some point soon (maybe).

Also, I should add that it is possible to open a native Windows "Open File" dialog, for example, directly from Squeak, using FFI. (Foreign Function Interface)

> (Why should the development environment remain as background for my application?)

If you hide it (which is easy to do), no one will know it's there. :-)  In theory, you could also work with majorShrink to remove much of the development environment, if you want to make your application size smaller.  Also, it sounds like SqC might be doing some more serious work on modularizing Squeak after 3.1 (?), which will help this a lot.

Anyway, easy development of native Windows (or Mac/Unix) look & feel applications is not the primary goal of Squeak Central, which is why this stuff isn't already working.  But there are enough other people interested in this in the community, that gradual progress is still being made in this area.

- Doug Way
  dway at riskmetrics.com





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