[squeak-dev] High-level docs for ToolBuilder?

H. Hirzel hannes.hirzel at gmail.com
Mon May 7 08:34:04 UTC 2018


Squeak wiki (accessible tbrough www.squeak.org) page no 5607 gives an
overview of Toolbuilder.

On 5/7/18, Marcel Taeumel <marcel.taeumel at hpi.de> wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
>
> take a look at ObjectExplorer >> #buildWith:.
>
> Then take a look at the hierarchy of PluggableWidgetSpec, which maps to what
> you can find in ToolBuilder category "defaults". Try to understand the
> change/update observer pattern, which governs the communication between
> (pluggable) widgets and the model(s). Most tools in Squeak form a "fat
> model", which means that all widgets call back into one model object (i.e.
> Browser, Debugger, Workspace, ...).
>
> Say, you want to add several buttons?
>
> 1) You need a visual container such as PluggableWindowSpec or
> PluggablePanelSpec (or "builder pluggablePanelSpec new").
> 2) You configure your button spec as needed (see PluggableButtonSpec).
> 3) You add this spec to the container via "panelSpec children add:
> buttonSpec".
> 4) You build the whole thing via "builder build: mySpec".
>
> Again, take a look at ObjectExplorer >> #buildWith: and how ObjectExplorer
> implements the call backs. :-)
>
> Best,
> Marcel
>
> Am 07.05.2018 10:03:37 schrieb Daniel Passaro <danpassaro at gmail.com>:
> I'm trying to build a pet GUI project in Squeak but I'm finding it very
> confusing to trace through the code that actually builds, for example, a
> Workspace or SystemBrowser.  Is there an up-to-date, high-level overview of
> how ToolBuilder works and the intended/best-practice way of creating an
> actual application with it?
>
> I am also a Squeak and Smalltalk newbie so if ToolBuilder only makes sense
> if, say, you're familiar with MVC, please let me know as ToolBuilder is the
> first framework I've tried to use in Squeak.
>
> For the record, I have skimmed some of the other Morphic tutorials but they
> seem to generally involve custom widgets that don't scale with the parent
> window.  I want to create a plain-Jane business-y GUI with scrollbars and
> expandable windwos, but most of the tutorials I found seemed geared towards
> more playful and exploratory projects (laser games and bouncing balls and
> etc).


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