[squeak-dev] [Urgent][4.1.1] Squeak screen shot and backgrounds / display of pictures

Hannes Hirzel hannes.hirzel at gmail.com
Mon Apr 26 19:36:55 UTC 2010


Hello

Bert started the thread 'a little press coverage'. Actually the
coverage is pretty good I think.
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-April/149615.html

Then Ian pointed out that we need a good screen shot and referred to
an example on his blog.
http://mecenia.blogspot.com/2010/04/history-of-squeak-in-pictures.html

It is just by now that I realized that there is a File List browser
open on that screen shot showing a bitmap (BMP) file. What is
displayed in the content windows are the codes, i.e. the picture is
not displayed.

In other threads ** in the recent days Steve Wessels was working on a
background chooser (posted to the inbox, then the issue of the Menu
Registry came up). In fact the regular file list browser includes a
button 'background'. It is however very difficult to choose a
background with it if you do not see the picture.

** For example here
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-April/149538.html
and http://squeak.preeminent.org/
(Steve's background chooser has more options like 'center' / 'Tile'
and he is working on an updated version)

As Smalltalk is the grand-daddy of graphical user interfaces it
strikes me with horror that after 30 years I do not see a picture if I
browse through directories with the main file explorer tool. I think
this needs a fix ASAP if we want to expose Squeak to a wider audience.

The quick fix for the time being is not to expose this deficiency in a
screen shot. A image morph would be better. I see the necessity for a
little maintenance release 4.1.1 which fixes this and  similar
problems.

This 4.1.1. could as well include the menu registry solution (either
pragma or MenuSpec) and some other things e.g.  'Right-click on
workspace stops functioning'

What do other's think about this issue? Would it be an option to go
for a 4.1.1. release within a few days? Maybe next Saturday?
These are not really difficult things to fix. More difficult things
might be unearthed later and that would call for a 4.1.2 two weeks
later.....

Kind regards
Hannes



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