[Squeak] Need for GUI-Building-Tool

Richard A. O'Keefe ok at cs.otago.ac.nz
Mon Jul 15 03:03:33 UTC 2002


Chris Burkert <christian.burkert at s2000.tu-chemnitz.de> wrote:
	I'm new to Smalltalk and especially to Squeak and I think this
	let's me see things more objective.

Questionable.  Either we're talking at cross-purposes,
or it hasn't let you see a number of things _at all_.

	- a modern look for widgets, something like KDE or Win XP
	  [a good look sells ;-)]
	  [support for themes would be great]

There is much discussion about this.

	- Support for Drag and Drop to 'draw' a Application like the VW 
	  UI-Painter has

Squeak _does_ support Drag and Drop.
You _can_ "draw" large parts of an application.
That's what the "Supplies" flap at the bottom of the window is
for, amongst other things.

	- all the std. widgets like:
	  ~ Buttons

Squeak _has_ buttons.  Look for class names matching "Button" and
you'll find more than you know what to do with.  Try PluggableButtonMorph.

	  ~ Lists

Squeak _has_ lists.  See for example PluggableListMorph.

	  ~ Tables

See TableLayout.

	  ~ Pull Down Menus

Pull down menus have to be pulled down from something.
The thing they are pulled down from is a MenuBar.
At its simplest, a MenuBar is just a rectangle full of buttons,
each of which brings up a menu when pressed.
Alternatively, you might simply stash a whole series of
Flaps along the top edge of the screen.

	  ~ Kontext Menus

I don't know what a Kontext menu is.

	  ~ Scroll Bars / Wheel Widgets

Squeak _has_ scroll-bars.  Anywhere you want them.

	  ~ Icons

Squeak _has_ icons.  An icon is just a morph showing an image.
See in particular IconicButton.

	  ~ endless Inputfields

I don't know how you mean "endless", but ParagraphEditors have no
arbitrary limits that I know of.  Is it TextFieldMorphs you're after?

	  ~ Notebooks (I think VW called it so, but I don't know if it's the
	    correct name)

The tabbed notebook widgets would be nice to have, 'tis true.
BookMorphs can do a lot of what they can do, though.

	  ~ ...
	- easy to add Short-Cuts

Is Short Cuts the same as Accelerator Keys?
What is it you find hard about adding them?

	- easy to add Balloon-Texts

They are EXTREMELY easy to add.
For example, given a button, bring up a halo, choose the debug halo item
(looks like a spanner, choose "edit balloon help", which is the last
item in the debug meno for a button.)

	I know about BobsUI, Prefab and SguiKit

All of the things I mention are there in the base image.

	I'm to unexperienced in Morphic to
	start it, but I will help where I can.
	
Documentation, that's what we need.  When we've got some, we
could do with some more Documentation.  After that, we could
do with a bit of beginner-oriented D....

There are the Squeak books and the Swiki.
Then there are the class comments, or at least, there _should_ be
the class comments, but in 3.0 the majority of the Morphic classes
seem to be uncommented.  How, for example, do you use the stuff in
the Morphic-Outliner category?  None of those classes is commented.



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