Chris Crowley <chris at winterstorm.ca> wrote:
> I was just suggesting I do some typing/editing in the external editor 
> and then switch back to squeak after filing the thing in and get the 
> benefits above. Even without the menu issue, I've been tempted to code 
> externally and then switch back to squeak to test several 
> classes/methods. I find editing easier in Xemacs. But it's certainly not 
> ideal to have to file code in repeatedly.


This reminds me: you should be aware that Squeak logs all changes.  Any
code that has been accepted is never lost!  In the Squeak-using class at
Georgia Tech, this mechanism is heavily emphasized on day 1 of the
class....  but even so, people forget and then complain at the end that
Squeak lost their code.  It did not -- the mechanism for getting the
code back is simply hidden too well.

If your image crashes for any reason, then when you restart, simply do
"recently logged changes" under the "changes" menu.  You'll get a list
of things you did, and you can select the ones you want to re-install.

Anyway, this suggests a nice UI tweak: when Squeak starts up, it should
check whether anything new is in the changes file since the last
snapshot.  If so, it should offer to browse those changes.  Variations
are possible, e.g. maybe Squeak can detect whether it crashed or whether
the user explicitly did a quit.  At any rate, this small change would
eliminate people from re-entering lost code so frequently.



-Lex