Multiple OS Windows for Squeak?

Bill Schwab BSchwab at anest.ufl.edu
Thu Apr 22 18:36:10 UTC 2004


Peter,

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>Could you list some example applications that use multiple simultaneous OS windows?  
Well, most applications open more than one window at various times. Yes often these are modal dialog boxes, but they should also be possible to open in an true os window from squeak which brings us to a system preference that could be added that would allow squeak windows to be opened in their own os window. Very cool.
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That would have its uses, but it would also seem to require (and I think this would be good for Squeak) a refactoring of system windows to make them willing and able to allow the OS to provide non-client widgets.  Hopefully a solution to that problem would make things like Zurgle even easier to create, even if all of the graphics are still done by Morphic.

However, there would also be some glue required to make system menus etc. work, which might not be so easy to do in a cross-platform way.  Perhaps wxWidgets offers a canned solution.

What I would not want to see, and I doubt the community would allow it to happen, is to have every Morph map to an OS window.  There is much to be said for emulation in terms of speed, flexibility, reliability, and portability, so trying to make every widget be native would be a step backwards.  The trick will be to find a middle ground that is useful without suffering too much overhead.


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In any of the serious desktop applications that I've every written or worked on as part of a team our applications have had multiple windows. It's just the normal way of it. It's just that Squeak is the anomoly in Smalltalk systems in that squeak only opens in one os window rather than opening each squeak window in it's own os window.
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I would strike the word "serious", as there are are "serious" efforts in Squeak, not to mention other examples of single-window systems that are quite real.  That caveat aside, your point is well taken.



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I really think the changes needed to make multiple os windows work are less challenging than most of us think. We really just need one or two people who know how to do it and it should only take a couple of days or less work since the code is already there but just needs reworking so that it's flexible.
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I am hardly a Morphic expert, but I suspect the movement of system menus to the outside world is worth more than a couple of days.  However, the work would be done in Smalltalk, so it's possible :)

Bill



Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: bills at anest4.anest.ufl.edu
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029




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