An Ideal System Browser

Jerry Balzano gjbalzano at ucsd.edu
Thu Nov 29 23:03:01 UTC 2001


Not that I'd presume to know what that is at my stage of (Squeak)
development, but it occurred to me as I was browsing around through various
classes and instances and methods that the Squeak System Browser lacks a
feature that we take for granted on all our web browsers and that most of
us would be lost without -- a "back" button!  Is it possible that nobody
has found the need for such a function?  'Cause I'd be looking at a method
and I'd find a word I didn't understand or some such, or just say "I wonder
about" some other class, method, or whatnot, and go there, then say to
myself, "OK, that's great, (or "that's complicated" or whatever) now I'm
ready to resume what I was doing."  But if what I was doing was in some
totally separate class with lots of methods to paw (OK, scroll) through,
well you get the idea -- what a pain!  and how wasteful of my time and
energy.

Now I know that I can just keep on opening a new SB whenever I begin one of
these side trips, but my screen is already pretty full, and more than two
System Browsers open at once is too many IMHO.  In most cases, all I really
need is one open SB window, but with some kind of "history" mechanism, even
if this is just a "back" button.

What do people think?  Is this kind of thing already available somewhere,
and I just missed it?  Or is there a better way of working such that
working that way obviates the need I'm feeling here?

		- Jerry






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