[ANN] new version of services available for preview

Romain Robbes romain.robbes at lu.unisi.ch
Fri Sep 9 11:28:54 UTC 2005


Hi,

     I just released two packages on squeakmap for further testing:

     - Services-All contains several packages related to services  
grouped together for convenient downloads:
             -- Services-Base should go into the image at one point
             -- Services-RB is the refactorings services
             -- Services-Keymapping provide keyboard shortcuts for  
services
             -- Services-IDE provides a few nifty features describe  
later

    - BrowseUnit has been updated to use the new version of the  
Services framework.


    This new version of services provides:
         - A cleaner way to define and register services, by  
subclassing a ServiceProvider class
         - Possibilities to add services in button bars such as in  
browsers
         - Better update mechanism, allowing menus and button bars to  
be dynamically changed
             (no need to open a new Browser when you install  
BrowseUnit for example)
         - Better support for disabled services in menus (they are  
grayed out)
         - Possibilities to enable or disable set of services in the  
Preferences

     On to the nifty IDE features ;-) :
         - Histories in browsers, inspired by Alain Plantec's add on.
                 The differences are:
                     -- no additional instance variable in browser
                     -- triggered by keyboard shortcut (apple-[ and  
apple-] on the mac, the alt key for windows or linux)
                     -- histories in message lists (apple-{ and } )  
as well
         - An hypertext mechanism: double-click on a code entity  
(variable, message send), to be transported here.
                 combined with histories, it makes the class browser  
really feel like a web browser.
         - Possibility of leaving unnaccepted methods, and restoring  
them later, which improves the browsing experience as well
         -Senders, implementors ... can be restricted to the image,  
package or hierarchy levels
         -There is a teleporting device ;-) : press apple-t or alt-t,  
enter some text, press enter, and you will be teleported where you  
wanted...
             Here are some examples:
             -- enter "ord.col" to browse the OrderedCollection class.
             -- enter "do:" to browse the implementors of do:
             -- enter "ord.col do:' to browse OrderedCollection>>#do:
             --enter "h" to get further help.
         This was inspired by some Mac utilities such as Quicksilver  
or Launchbar, only much more limited ;-)


     So I encourage you to try this out, and send me feedback about  
what doesn't work and what should be improved...

     Cheers,
         Romain



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