November 2013 - Pharo-users

Multicolumn text view with spec
by Norbert Hartl Nov. 5, 2013

Nov. 5, 2013

What would be the way to open a Systemwindow containing just a column view in spec? the column view is for aligning text that is one or two lines. No editing just displaying. thanks, Norbert

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Suggestions for simple & easy-to-use libraries for HTTP and JSON?
by Bahman Movaqar Nov. 5, 2013

Nov. 5, 2013

Hi all, Apparently, I finally have the time to do something serious with Pharo. And I'm intending to get started ASAP before any interruptions :-) I'm planning to write a GUI front-end for an application that provides JSON interface --the JSON provider is Fossil SCM (fossil-scm.org) As the first step I need an HTTP client library that can handle GET/POST requests and a JSON parsing library. I'd appreciate any suggestions for those libraries. TIA, -- Bahman Movaqar (http://BahmanM.com) ERP Evaluation, Implementation & Deployment Consultant PGP Key ID: 0x6AB5BD68 (keyserver2.pgp.com)

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Updating Pharo 2 - Unable to resolve ConfigurationOfFuel
by Bahman Movaqar Nov. 4, 2013

Nov. 4, 2013

Hi all, I just downloaded Pharo 2.0 on a Windows machine, unpacked it, ran it and from the world menu selected System -> Software Update but bumped into an exception: <stacktrace> Error: Unable to resolve ConfigurationOfFuel GoferConfigurationReference(Object)>>error: GoferConfigurationReference(GoferReference)>>resolveWith: Gofer>>resolved in Block: [:each | each resolveWith: self] Array(SequenceableCollection)>>collect: Gofer>>resolved GoferLoad>>initializeOn: GoferLoad class(GoferOperation class)>>on: Gofer>>execute:do: Gofer>>execute: Gofer>>load ScriptLoader>>update20608 UndefinedObject>>DoIt Compiler>>evaluate:in:to:notifying:ifFail:logged: Compiler class>>evaluate:for:notifying:logged: Compiler class>>evaluate:for:logged: Compiler class>>evaluate:logged: DoItDeclaration>>import CodeImporter>>evaluateDeclarations in Block: [:decl | value := decl import] OrderedCollection>>do: CodeImporter>>evaluateDeclarations CodeImporter class>>evaluateReadStream: ChangeSet class>>newChangesFromStream:named: in Block: [| newStream |... BlockClosure>>ensure: ChangeSet class>>newChangesFromStream:named: UpdateStreamer>>elementaryReadServerUpdates: in Block: [| docQueue docQueueSema |... BlockClosure>>ensure: CursorWithMask(Cursor)>>showWhile: UpdateStreamer>>elementaryReadServerUpdates: UpdateStreamer>>elementaryReadServerUpdates UpdateStreamer>>updateFromServer in Block: [self elementaryReadServerUpdates] </stacktrace> This is an ablsolutely fresh Pharo instance. Am I doing anything wrong? How can I resolve this? TIA, -- Bahman Movaqar (http://BahmanM.com) ERP Evaluation, Implementation & Deployment Consultant PGP Key ID: 0x6AB5BD68 (keyserver2.pgp.com)

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Yet another "building a GUI" question
by Sergi Reyner Nov. 4, 2013

Nov. 4, 2013

Hi everyone! This is my first message to the list. I've been learning Smalltalk and toying with Pharo 2.0 for some weeks now. One thing that has me puzzled is the many different ways to build GUIs. IÂ´m rewriting an app in Pharo as an exercise. It needs to display images in some parts. So far, I have: - Sent messages to (UITheme builder) - Created a SystemWindow, then #addMorph: to it, sending them #model: and so afterwards. - Tried and somewhat succeeded in building my GUI with Spec, which apparently doesn't know about images. - Read some stuff about Athens - Read some stuff about Morphic 3, and wondered if it will make its way into Pharo. - Read something about how Spec has changed a lot in Pharo 3.0 (which is labelled as alpha) On top of that, as I understand it, building GUIs with Morphic was originally meant to be a visual live process, however what I've read so far takes a programmatic approach. So... many questions, few clues, I am lost. I definitely need to use some AlphaImageMorphs in certain parts of the application, and while I find Spec's way easier, I'm at a loss when it comes to that part. On the other hand, it's sold as "the new way to build GUIs" so I'm not sure if these are missing things that will be included later, or if I'm supposed to implement them on top of the Spec framework, or even if thereÂ´s already a way to do it and I just don't get it :S Cheers, Sergi

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Create a .exe application in Pharo 2.0
by Torsten Bergmann Nov. 4, 2013

Nov. 4, 2013

Hi Paolo, If you ask for how to build an EXE I guess you work on Windows and have already experience with building EXE's using other programming languages. Typically IDE's for C/C++, Pascal, VisualBasic, ... provide this concept, you have a main(), WinMain() or other entry point function into your program and provide some additional resources (like a custom icon, version info, ...). The development environment typically creates a file with an *.exe extension - internally this is a so called PE-File (portable executable) that when clicked is loaded by the OS loader and starts in your predefined entry point. Unfortunately is not a very flexible way to package anything into a single compiled executable. It is hard to ship an update - since you have to redeploy the executable anytime your program changes. Portable for EXE also means "portable on Windows only", since the PE-Format is Windows specific. Real portable environments that are based on virtual machines (VM) tyically use another path: they just have a single executable for the virtual machine itself. This virtual machine is implemented as a native windows, mac, Linux, ... application and your program is included in one or more portable file(s) running on top of this VM. Take Java as an example: you have a Java runtime environment with an EXE for the virtual machine (java.exe) and your program is portable since it is defined in a (Java) portable format (*.class files and *.jar archives). In Java you typically also do not deploy an EXE, you deploy the JAR archives and if not preinstalled maybe the Java runtime environment (JRE). Downside is: in Java the environment will have to be correctly set up, otherwise the virtual machine may not find the classes of your program - then you have to fight with loader problems, class path problems, ... Additional note: yes there are products in the market that allow you to also create an EXE from a Java program - but they do often nothing more than packaging up the program into a single EXE file for better handling - in the end they often use the virtual machine to run it. Microsoft does something similar nowedays - if you build an EXE in C# you end up with a native Win32 application in PE-Format that loads and runs the .NET runtime. So it is not more than an entrypoint into the more portable .NET world. Take care: while the basic concepts of .NET are portable (see Mono to run on Linux) the APIs are often very bound to Windows. Smalltalk (and Pharo) goes one step further: it also provides a native virtual machine (EXE) like in the other environments - but all the objects, packages, resources, ... even the IDE are hosted in a single data file (called the Image file with an *.image" extension). So you can compare it more with technologies like VMWare, VirtualBox, ... with portable images or portable game engines like ScummVM where the program runs on top of a VM and is shipped as a single file. To make long story short: ========================= 1. You typically and easy deploy by giving the Pharo VM executable away together with your custom image file (predefined for customer experience) and with you application setup (typically in fullscreen). 2. If you want to hide that it is done in Pharo and "customize" it a little bit more, specific on Windows: A. rename the virtual machine Pharo.exe into "MyKillerApp.exe" B. Prepare image - disable "Check changes file availability" in the Settings browser (if you do not need the code changes "*.changes") - disable "Check sources file availability" in the Settings browser (if you do not need the source code file "*.sources") - start you app to take up the full space of the Pharo window (sample can be found in http://www.smalltalkhub.com/#!/~Pharo/PharoLauncher) - do other things to customize, like providing a custom world menu (http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/pipermail/pharo-project/2010-September/032696.…) - save the image with a different name "MyKillerApp.data" (so no image extension if you like) C. You renamed the VM into "MyKillerApp.exe" (see Step A) so instead of Pharo.ini the VM system looks for a "MyKillerApp.ini" in the same directory. Add the name of your new image file here: [Global] ImageFile=MyKillerApp.data ... So when the user clicks on "MyKillerApp.exe" the virtual machine is started, reads the "MyKillerApp.ini" and loads the "MyKillerApp.data" Pharo image. D. If you want to have a nice custom icon use the "Resource hacker" freeware tool to exchange the icon of the virtual machine. If you need more customizations just have a look at VM building. Using MingW, CMake and friends and the Pharo VM tool chain it is easy to rebuild and adopte the Pharo VM (executable) to own custom needs. Here you can also provide an own custom icon or other execuable properties (like version info) by customizing the *.rc file. You can also implement custom VM plugins ... up to a whole new Pharo ;) An image is very very flexible. Note that you can even provide an own update server - to update customer images similar to how Pharo images are updated. If required and allowed the customer can also save the image in different states like saving a game. I would not recommend it - but technically it is possible. So depending how far you want to go (and how deep you will go into Pharo internals) anything is possible for shipping a customized environment. Bye T.

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moving moose to pharo 3.0
by Tudor Girba Nov. 4, 2013

Nov. 4, 2013

Hi, We essentially finished moving Moose to Pharo 3.0 (we still have 6 yellow tests but they needed attention anyway). It took about 4 people looking into issues for a total probably around 2 man-days of effort. The largest impediment was actually SmalltalkHub being down for one day :). What posed problems: - RB visitor now has correct visit* methods instead of accept* methods. The deprecation messages helped quite a bit. This meant (1) that we had to rename in our visitors the methods, and (2) that we had to change the old accept* messages. - RB nodes do not answer to #isLiteral anymore. Instead, they answer correctly to #isLiteralNode so that to avoid confusion with Object>>#isLiteral. This is good, and this meant that we had to hunt all #isLiteral usages in Moose. - Categories are no longer mapped on RPackages through 1-to-1. This is also good because it is an important step in Pharo. Although originally we said we want to keep 1-to-1, this is probably a better solution now. For Moose, this meant that some of our older tests setup had to be modified a bit to rely on RPackage only. - Some Morphs rely now on Announcements, and this had a little impact on the assumptions we make when we suspend announcements (to avoid infinite loops) that are being sent between Morphic and Glamour. We fixed this in Glamour. - In FileSystem #ensureDirectory was renamed to #ensureCreateDirectory without a deprecation. For this one, we should add a deprecation for the old method. - flatCollect had a conflicting behavior in Pharo. We are now integrating the Moose version so that it returns the same species. - The new SpecDebugger expects the registered Inspector to be based on Spec, and this causes problems with the GTInspector. This problem still has to be fixed in Pharo. All in all, we encountered no significant problems and the problems we faced came from deep into Pharo. So, if your code is not relying directly on RB, RPackage or the Debugger, you are likely to have a smooth transition. Cheers, Doru -- www.tudorgirba.com "Every thing has its own flow"

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Building a simple UI with Spec. Problem with menus.
by nacho Nov. 3, 2013

Nov. 3, 2013

Hi, this is my first post in the Pharo group. I'm developing a simple Text Editor with some nice features as a way to understand how Spec works. It seems that Spec will be the default UI framework from Pharo 3 onwards, I know it's changing and evolving but I'll take the risk. The problem I'm facing is that I'm lost at trying to add a "Save as..." option in the menu. It seems that Spec is still using the Morphic MenuMorph>>ToggleMenuItemMorph but it's not clear to me hoy to add this item. On the other hand, inspecting the ComposableModel class, it seem that in the future this will be done directly in Spec as suggested by the ComposableModel>>addMenuItemsToWindowMenu: But so far that method simply says "do nothing". Any help? Thanks in advance Cheers Nacho -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Building-a-simple-UI-with-Spec-Problem-with-menus-tp4… Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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I would rather pay for Smalltalkhub than use Github for free.
by MartinW Nov. 3, 2013

Nov. 3, 2013

Just a thought on the discussions about Smalltalkhub beeing down and people would love to use Gibhub instead: I would rather pay for Smalltalkhub than use Github for free. And there is all this talk about building a business with Pharo - why not make a business from Smalltalkhub? The thought of course is that when Smalltalkhub would be a business, itâs makers could spend more time and effort keeping it up and running and adding new features. This may have been quoted a lot but still: "The lesson: People are happy to pay for things that work well. Never be afraid to put a price on something. If you pour your heart into something and make it great, sell it. For real money. Even if there are free options, even if the market is flooded with free. People will pay for things they love.â From: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2794-how-to-get-good-at-making-money -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/I-would-rather-pay-for-Smalltalkhub-than-use-Github-f… Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Transforming JPEG Images into Morphs
by Bruce Prior Nov. 2, 2013

Nov. 2, 2013

Sven wrote: It is trivially easy to open a JPEG (or GIF or PNG) and turn it into a Morph: '/Users/Sven/Desktop/test.jpg' asFileReference readStreamDo: [ :in | (JPEGReadWriter on: in) nextImage asMorph openInWindow ]. I tried this in Pharo 1.4 one-click but got an MNU: 'reset'. It does work, however, in Pharo 3 one-click.

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May I be re-added to PharoExtras/JSON ?
by Paul DeBruicker Nov. 2, 2013

Nov. 2, 2013

my username is pdebruic Thanks

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