[squeak-dev] problem with MenuMorph like morphs

Ralph Boland rpboland at gmail.com
Fri Mar 27 04:32:52 UTC 2020


I have a Morph subclass, say M, that contains a collection of
"ItemMorph", say, as submorphs.
When an M is displayed the ItemMorph submorphs are displayed in a
column.  An ItemMorph
can act as a display of data but can also act as a button.  This code
all works as expected.

I sometimes need an M morph to act similar to a MenuMorph;  that is
the  M  morph
can be made to display on command, say from pressing some button.  Then once the
user presses on one of the M morph submorphs (ItemMorphs)  the pressed upon
submorph is to like a button invoking some action.   Once the
selection is made the
entire  M  morph is to be deleted from the screen, like for a MenuMorph.

Except in my case the button action never occurs and the M morph is not deleted.

To get to the root of the problem I made copies of Classes  MenuMorph
and MenuItemMorph
and was able to get menus to work using these classes. Once I got
these copied morphs to
work like regular menus I was able to set breakpoints without getting
unwanted call stacks.

I then made the changes to  M and  "ItemMorph" based upon what I
learned about MenuMorph
and MenuItemMorph.   I then made a call stack occur when using the
copied Morphs by having the
method to invoke when a selection is made not exist.  My classes  M
and ItemMorph have
every  method that is a mehod of  MenuMorph or  MenuItemMorph on the
call stack.  But none
of them are called when I try to create a menu using M.

It seems that some code that handles focus invokes a new process to
handle the click by
the mouse on a MenuItemMorph  but doesn't do so or does so such that
nothing happens
when I click on a ItemMorph submorph of an  M morph on my screen.

Where can I set a breakpoint so that I can investigate why nothing
happens when I click
on a ItemMorph instance submorph of an M morph on the screen?

Notes:
1) When my M morph is first displayed there is at the top a balloon that says:

                   Enter text to narrow selection
                   down to matching items

I didn't intend for this balloon to occur but it got picked up somehow.
It would be useful to know how to change its text or remove it.  I
point it out here only because
it may help explain what is happening.

2)  On mouseUp this balloon disappears.

3) after the second mouseDown the  M morph gains a shadow and can be
picked up and moved.

This is an open source project for teaching math/science to young kids.
I have problems with the MIT license though so not sure what license I will use.

Any help much appreciated and sorry about the post length.

Ralph Boland


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