> On Sep 9, 2022, at 10:14 AM, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 2022-09-09, at 9:18 AM, David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Thu, Sep 08, 2022 at 10:08:00PM -0500, Chris Muller wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 2:33 PM Thiede, Christoph <Christoph.Thiede at student.hpi.uni-potsdam.de> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> probably a simple FAQ, but I did not find a simple answer to it: What
>>>> would be the easiest way to clear my changes file? The background is
>>>> that I have a "fresh trunk image" which I open several times a day to
>>>> test anything out, make some changes to some classes, or install several
>>>> Metacello packages but eventually close the image without saving. This
>>>> bloats my changes file. How can I empty it again and remove all old
>>>> do-its, prior method versions, and so on? The "remove" items in the
>>>> change list tool do not seem to have any effect for me.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> I solve this with "Save as...".  First thing from the stock trunk
>>> image is to "save as" your work name.  Then, within that work, the
>>> same thing -- save as "_temp", do the load, then, if everything is
>>> good, save back as the original work name.  If not, you have the old
>>> work image and unbloated changes.
>>> 
>> 
>> That's what I do also.
>> 
>> Another simple way approach is to keep your stock trunk image and
>> changes files in a zip or tgz archive, and unzip them when you are
>> ready to start fresh.
> 
> This is why I think we should make the default image read-only, and insist on that image being saved under a new name/location as the very first thing. I.e. treat the default image in the way that many applications treat templates.

+1, maybe. But that lifecycle needs system changes.  When first saving the image the dialog should explain to the user why.  And an apple bundle needs to open the “right” image, which is presumably the one saved the first time, and that is difficult to arrange.  And do much info may overwhelm the new user.

So perhaps the right thing to do here is for condenseChanges to should loudly that the image must be saved.

The right time to set up a read/write image vs the release read-only one might be install time. I would rather have the default image name be simple, eg squeak6.1.image, and have the version info in the image tell what release artifact it was derived from.  But that isn’t trivial to arrange either.


The fundamental issue here is that experienced users get to know the image/changes/save+copy scheme but new users don’t know it.

What if we modified launch so that the copy from the read-only release image was done when the app was started?  How can that be done without making it possible to create a read-only command processor image?

A complicated issue.

> 
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Change is inevitable....except from vending machines.
> 
> 
>