[squeak-dev] automaticPhraseExpansion ?

Scott Wallace SqueakList at pacbell.net
Sun Nov 9 01:31:04 UTC 2008


On Nov 8, 2008, at 12:25 PM, stephane ducasse wrote:

> Does anybody has an idea what is the purpose of  
> automaticPhraseExpansion in PasteUpMorph?


Hi, Stephane,

It's an etoy-related feature only.

It governs whether a phrase tile which has just been grabbed from a  
Viewer, if dropped into the pasteUpMorph, should automatically get  
expanded into new Scriptor whose script consists of that single phrase.

This kind of "expansion", of course, constitutes the essential first  
bit of "magic" in any intro-to-etoys demo -- the user grabs a copy of  
a "car forward by 5" phrase-tile, drops it on the desktop, and the  
result is a complete "Script", ready to run.

But experience showed that this kind of magical expansion was not  
appropriate for every paste-up morph, nor for every user, and indeed  
it can be quite annoying in some cases, and worse than annoying in  
others -- think, for example, of dropping a phrase tile into a  
pasteUpMorph that is inside a "supplies bin."

Normally (in current Squeakland and olpc Etoy images at least,) the  
"world" has this property turned on, as does the "Scripting Space,"  
but other PasteUpMorphs, such as most book pages, and the "Playfield"  
you get from the Supplies bin, do not.   The user can change the  
"automaticPhraseExpansion" behavior of any particular pasteup (such as  
a book page, or a flap) via a checkbox in its playfield-options menu,  
to suit individual needs.


Cheers,

-- Scott



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