[UI] ToolBuilder

[Colin Putney]

On Sep 9, 2007, at 8:12 AM, Bill Schwab wrote:

> You are making a lot of sense, as usual.  Is it fair to say that you
> favor building a clean widget set, perhaps an MVP framework along with
> them, and then let clean tools follow it?  You mention "The Welsh  
> Thing"
> (Adopting that name might be a good marketing move for them<g>).  How
> far would you go with it?  Would we end up with Squeak browsers and
> debuggers floating around on our Linux desktops, or would there  
> still be
> one main window?  In a perfect world, I would like to be able to flip
> between the two.  But for now, I am curious what you envision as the
> correct approach.

I think it would be great to have a GUI built on native windows and  
menu bar(s), containing custom widgets drawn by Cairo or OpenGL. MVP  
sounds like a good idea, though that implies a Dolphin-like  
framework, and I know nothing about Dolphin.

I think using native windows is a much bigger win than going all the  
way to native widgets. Using the native window manager would mean  
that Squeak "plays well" with the native platform - Exposé, app  
switching, window hiding, minimizing etc all work correctly. If  
that's the case, we don't have to worry so much about matching the  
native look, so long as the feel is reasonable.

As an example, I've attached a screenshot of OmniBrowser using HTML/ 
Javascript views in Safari. The widgets are nothing to write home  
about, but having native windows is pretty cool.

On the other hand, this would be an enormous amount of work... so  
much that there's significant risk that it would never be finished.  
And I already have more projects than I can handle, which I'm sure is  
true of most people here. Something less ambitious may have a better  
chance of bearing fruit. ;-)

Colin

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