Lyndon Tremblay <humasect at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Why stop at a GUI builder? why not go for a full application/object builder?
> Squeak itself is already this. Having a GUI builder seems somewhat like
> having a chair on a bench... perhaps this can still be desireable, though.
> 
> Why not say something like... Squeak's factory interface objects are "not
> good"?
> "Not visually pleasing or consistant enough"? Etc.
> 
> Atomically, consistance/standardism here consists of sharing the same class
> and class heirarchy. Ie. if it is a Morph and also a BasicButton, it can be
> considered a standard button "widget". Though BasicButton is only a template
> or convenience wrapper for a predefined definition of a Morphic state
> representing a basic button; enough to draw, show clicks, carry out itself.

I took the question in a more general form, though: how do build plain
jane UI's that input a lot of text and allow people to select from
lists, etc.  If you want to do that, then at *least* you want to have a
widget library to select from.  You might also want to have a GUI
builder--or maybe not--but that's a secondary issue.

We do have widget libraries around, and a lot of new users want them,
and these boring GUI's are something that Squeak is very good at.  Let's
show off.


Lex

PS -- heheh, I suppose that if you have to sit on it in the same
position for a long time putting a chair on a bench is a nice thing,
even though it's a bit of a kludge!  And the way software development
seems to go nowadays, doubtless someone will put another bench on top of
the chair....