September 2008 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

[Pharo-project] Smalltalk in research :)
by StÃ©phane Ducasse Sept. 23, 2008

Sept. 23, 2008

http://interstices.info/jcms/c_39747/programmer-un-jeu-d-enfant There is also a podcast http://interstices.info/jcms/c_34709/podcast-interstices Stef

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[Pharo-project] Product Brand Pharo
by Torsten Bergmann Sept. 23, 2008

Sept. 23, 2008

Markus wrote >One question: is the splash-screen really needed? Adrien wrote: >I don't see the point of a splash screen. I completely agree that it is useless in the sense of loading screen showing the progress for the standard pharo image. Maybe it makes more sense for the "slower" TrueType image where a progress bar currently shows the font updates. But this is not possible since the Squeak VM does not (yet) support an updating splash progress in the native splash window driven by Smalltalk code. But a splash can also be done "image side only" anyway. But that's not the point. I suggested to provide a splash screen more from the branding/marketing point of view - even if it is technically useless. At least I want to know what others think about it. A splash screen typically shows the Logo and some version information and people rember/recognize/identify the software through that. Some applications have an option to disable the splash or show it only on the first startup. Eclipse for instance uses a slightly modified splash screen theme for each yearly full release (Europa, Ganymede, ...) - nice idea since the user knows which one is started when the disk is full with different versions. Sure we should drop the splash screen from the technical point of view - but it would be a nice idea to have the welcome screen of each Pharo release with a slightly modified theme to see if it is a core, developer image, ... We dont have to clone native apps/Java IDE's - but at least we can learn a little bit about branding/marketing and how good design can attract more people. Take another example - will you find a Smalltalk IDE with good looking Wizards these days? >From the Smalltalkers point of view (knowing about #subclass: messages) it's technically useless and will bloat the image - but I've seen many newbies blaming Smalltalk to be that complicated the first time they just click around and search for the Class/Package wizard. Squeak is also not very supportive if one needs help - there is a help menu but no real help/documentation. That does not mean we should have the splash screen or spend the whole day implementing Wizards - but at least we should discuss and think about what the first impression for others/non Smalltalkers will be and how we can help them to take first hurdles and enjoy the power of Smalltalk... Bye Torsten -- GMX startet ShortView.de. Hier findest Du Leute mit Deinen Interessen! Jetzt dabei sein: http://www.shortview.de/wasistshortview.php?mc=sv_ext_mf@gmx

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[Pharo-project] Halt once; workspace(?) menu
by Bill Schwab Sept. 23, 2008

Sept. 23, 2008

A couple of quick thoughts based on the Polymorph/TT image: (1) Halt-once looks like it is built into the image as a mode. It is a VERY useful concept, but Dolphin has long had a goodie that provides the feature as a class, used something along the lines of the following: abandonHopeAllYeWhoRaiseEndlessWalkbacksHere self someUnfortunateConditionDetected ifTrue:[ Once do:[ self halt. ]. " Once reset. " ]. Any takers? I did not write it, but I think we will find it licensed in a friendly way, or it could be easily reconstructed, if not improved by having registered instances, allowing independent conditional breakpoints, and all in code, or as I like to say "done in the language, not TO the language." (2) The extended search sub-menu. At the really picky level (ignore if there is ANY problem with this), it might be nicer to pop out a submenu vs. jumping to another menu. Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 273-6785 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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Re: [Pharo-project] Re: Re: [ANN] Demo with both Truetype +Polymorph
by Bill Schwab Sept. 22, 2008

Sept. 22, 2008

Marcus, I'm fairly certain the problem is in Redmond. It would not be the first thing they botched. I'm just annoyed with myself for not fingering them sooner. By all means though, newbies will encounter it, so protecting Windows from itself is probably a good move. Is Pharo going to adopt the one-click structure? On Windows, I do not much care. The VM "installs" trivially, and shortcuts are cheap. Shortcuts are not much more expensive on Linux, or maybe I haven't learned enough about how to skip steps on Linux. The VM is a little more trouble on Linux, but nothing I can't handle, and I'll gain familiarity as I go. All that said, since there is something that is brain-dead simple on the main platforms, I'm not too proud to use it ;) I do not much care whether we use it or not. If the plan is to do so, I can save myself some hassle sooner rather than later, but whatever you guys want to do is fine by me. Thanks! Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 273-6785 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> denker(a)iam.unibe.ch 09/22/08 3:56 PM >>> On 22.09.2008, at 20:57, Andrew Tween wrote: > > "Bill Schwab" <BSchwab(a)anest.ufl.edu> wrote in message news:s8d7aeb8.028@AN9.ANEST.UFL.EDU > ... >> Got it. My basic algorithm for finding problems usually starts with >> "what could Microsoft have done to screw this up?" I faltered. In >> this >> case, MS could have made a mockery of the file names in the >> archive, and >> that is apparently just what they did. I do not care for 7-Zip's >> user >> interface, but the engine works. It magically understood the archive >> (what's that word again, standards???<g>), unzipped all the files, >> and >> now everything works. Very impressive BTW. > > That rings a bell. > I had the same problem with the early Sophie releases. > The Windows unzipper tried to create a folder and a file with the > same name. > > I reported the problem to the Sophie team, and with the most recent > releases of Sophie, Windows can unzip it ok. > Might be worth finding out how they got around the problem. > I think the problem is the Mac: the zip creates hidden files (starting with a dot, I think) for storing the resource fork of the old macos filesystem. I should create the zip differently... Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- denker(a)iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker _______________________________________________ Pharo-project mailing list Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project

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Re: [Pharo-project] Re: Re: [ANN] Demo with both Truetype +Polymorph
by Bill Schwab Sept. 22, 2008

Sept. 22, 2008

Marcus, I'm fairly certain the problem is in Redmond. It would not be the first thing they botched. I'm just annoyed with myself for not fingering them sooner. By all means though, newbies will encounter it, so protecting Windows from itself is probably a good move. Is Pharo going to adopt the one-click structure? On Windows, I do not much care. The VM "installs" trivially, and shortcuts are cheap. Shortcuts are not much more expensive on Linux, or maybe I haven't learned enough about how to skip steps on Linux. The VM is a little more trouble on Linux, but nothing I can't handle, and I'll gain familiarity as I go. All that said, since there is something that is brain-dead simple on the main platforms, I'm not too proud to use it ;) I do not much care whether we use it or not. If the plan is to do so, I can save myself some hassle sooner rather than later, but whatever you guys want to do is fine by me. Thanks! Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 273-6785 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> denker(a)iam.unibe.ch 09/22/08 3:56 PM >>> On 22.09.2008, at 20:57, Andrew Tween wrote: > > "Bill Schwab" <BSchwab(a)anest.ufl.edu> wrote in message news:s8d7aeb8.028@AN9.ANEST.UFL.EDU > ... >> Got it. My basic algorithm for finding problems usually starts with >> "what could Microsoft have done to screw this up?" I faltered. In >> this >> case, MS could have made a mockery of the file names in the >> archive, and >> that is apparently just what they did. I do not care for 7-Zip's >> user >> interface, but the engine works. It magically understood the archive >> (what's that word again, standards???<g>), unzipped all the files, >> and >> now everything works. Very impressive BTW. > > That rings a bell. > I had the same problem with the early Sophie releases. > The Windows unzipper tried to create a folder and a file with the > same name. > > I reported the problem to the Sophie team, and with the most recent > releases of Sophie, Windows can unzip it ok. > Might be worth finding out how they got around the problem. > I think the problem is the Mac: the zip creates hidden files (starting with a dot, I think) for storing the resource fork of the old macos filesystem. I should create the zip differently... Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- denker(a)iam.unibe.ch http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker _______________________________________________ Pharo-project mailing list Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project

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Re: [Pharo-project] Re: [ANN] Demo with both Truetype + Polymorph
by Bill Schwab Sept. 22, 2008

Sept. 22, 2008

Got it. My basic algorithm for finding problems usually starts with "what could Microsoft have done to screw this up?" I faltered. In this case, MS could have made a mockery of the file names in the archive, and that is apparently just what they did. I do not care for 7-Zip's user interface, but the engine works. It magically understood the archive (what's that word again, standards???<g>), unzipped all the files, and now everything works. Very impressive BTW. Dumb question: to copy an image/changes between machines, would I simply copy the image and change files (a few levels down in Resources), and leave the rest of the "one click image" alone? Bill Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 273-6785 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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[Pharo-project] Case of caseOf
by StÃ©phane Ducasse Sept. 22, 2008

Sept. 22, 2008

Hi I would love if we could slowly deprecate caseOf: Stef

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[Pharo-project] Product Brand Pharo
by Torsten Bergmann Sept. 22, 2008

Sept. 22, 2008

Beginners always lament on the default look of Squeak. Hopefully this will change with Pharo and Truetype/Polymorph. Some comments on the pharo one click image: I dont know who builds the custom VM for Pharo - but the icon is the one from Seaside and should be replaced. There are various parameters in the *.ini file to product brand a squeak VM based application therefore I would also recommend to add the folling lines into the Pharo.ini file: WindowTitle=Pharo This sets the window title to Pharo instead of Squeak and QuitDialogMessage="Quit Pharo without saving?" QuitDialogLabel=Pharo adapts the quit message box of the VM. At least on Win32. See http://www.squeakvm.org/win32/settings.html It would also be good to have a splash screen with the logo or some decent looking graphics/logo combination. The splash screen typically is a *.bmp file located in the same directory as pharo.exe and the default name is splash.bmp. You can set up another name again in the pharo.ini file: SplashScreen="pharo.bmp" SplashTitle=Pharo SplashTime=2000 Attached is a modified Pharo.ini and a sample splash file. Just put it in the same directory as the EXE file for the one click install. Do we have access to professinal designer for a good looking splash/website/icons? Are there any plans regarding this? Thanks Torsten -- Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger gehÃ¶rt? Der kann`s mit allen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger

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Sept. 22, 2008

Hi I was checking the clean up of the menus. This is good but the changes...items are really missing to me. Especially the recover from .... We certainly do not need all of the changes related items but some are really important. Then from the windows menu item I would keep and remove Delete both of the above. Stef

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Re: [Pharo-project] Re: [ANN] Demo with both Truetype + Polymorph
by Bill Schwab Sept. 22, 2008

Sept. 22, 2008

Igor, Ah, but you miss the point, wise and kind sir :) Dumbing down users makes them less able to pirate software. That aside, assuming I unzip the files into a folder of my chosing[*] and run Pharo.exe, what should happen? I will unzip it elsewhere to see what I find. One of my attempts lead to "file not found." It looks too correct to be corrupt download, so I'm thinking MS is tripping up over file names. Bill [*] Seriously, each update cycle, this particular XP box gets weirder and weirder. Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 273-6785 FAX: (352) 392-7029 >>> siguctua(a)gmail.com 9/22/2008 12:28:05 PM >>> 2008/9/22 Bill Schwab <BSchwab(a)anest.ufl.edu>: > I appeared to get a valid download, but something isn't right. Is the > idea to download, unzip (MS seems to make this flakier with every > update???), and then launch Pharo.exe? Are there separate image and > change files? I do not see them, just a LOT of folders/files that are > giving my Java flashbacks. > MS people invented term of 'installing software' , while in most cases it can be done by simply copying files. And one of the results of such 'invention' that now people simply can't make simplest things like unpacking acrhive to choosen folder and run the program by themselves - they think in a terms of 'icon on desktop' or 'icon in the launch menu'.. A progress. What i can say. >From this POV, the distribution is still far away from the 'one-click', because , in my vision, a single click should be in browser, and after this click you should have everything up and running on your PC. :) > My assumption was that this is a prepared image with Polymorph and TT > loaded, and on seeing the structure, I figured it was a Sophie-like > distribution. Are my expectations skewed? Please let me know if I am > missing something. Otherwise, I will try this again later. > > Bill > > > > Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. > University of Florida > Department of Anesthesiology > PO Box 100254 > Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 > > Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu > Tel: (352) 273-6785 > FAX: (352) 392-7029 > > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig. _______________________________________________ Pharo-project mailing list Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project

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