Hi,

Thanks for the detail feedback. I provided some inlined answers and took the liberty of changing the thread subject.

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 4:58 PM, Laura Risani <laura.risani@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Doru ,

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 9:40 AM, Tudor Girba <tudor@tudorgirba.com> wrote:

In the latest Pharo 4 Spotter works properly with the Dark Theme.
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Starting from a fresh image (downloaded this week), and doing nothing more than setting the theme to Pharo 3 Dark, GTSpotter shows white, what is curious because GTInspector and GTPlayground show dark.��

As mentioned, please try with the latest Pharo. I just tried 40481. The problem is fixed.��

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Could you elaborate? Where do you see the difference? What do you mean by "more direct"?

I'll tell you what i think based exclusively on my personal preferences (like the black theme) and not having tried the tool for very long, probably there are additional customizations and features i ignore, so my opinion won't be fully qualified.

I asked for your opinion and that is what I expect. No worries :)

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For accessing+navigating the world menu, i like better a global shortcut+the world menu itself, because, unlike Spotter, there is a visual depiction of submenus that let you recognize them beforehand, and when you type to navigate items stay at place so i don't have to visually rescan (to me these qualities are directness ones). In addition, unlike Spotter , word menu opens where the ponter is, so i could choose where to open it if i wanted to.

Spotter is not a tool for accessing menus :). It simply also offers a way to access menus.

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To quickly find and/or browse classes and msg implementations/senders is a need i frequently face (many times i know the names and want a quick access without "polluting" where i am), which can occur in two forms, with or without context.

In the contextual case (like browsing from within a class/method)��the tool i'm using provides me the browse facilities to address the need.

In the uncontextual case, i have Spotlight and��Spotter .

Spotlight��addresses the need directly in two steps��1�� find the cls/msg "name" 2��open a specialized (info+actions) browser on it in a regular window (modal/movable/resizeable).��
The model��is a simple direct one-to-one mapping of what i want to do, doesn't make me think how to do what i want to do.

This implies that all you want to do is look for a class or for a message. What about a pragma? Or a package? Or a previous script that you used in the Playground? Or global variables? Or a method inside a class? These deserve a way to be found as well, and Spotter is an interface for searching objects.

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In contrast, from the perspective of that need, Spotter��
-Doesn't search "names" (class names/selectors) but implementations, overlaping the two actions of the need (when i olny hava a clue and i'm not sure of the name i'm interesed into, i don't care for the list of implementations, is obstrusive "garbage"). Forcing me to unnecessarily think how to do what i want to do. In addition i find it hard to think about the tool because i can't figure out a statement of purpose for it, perhaps "global search for a name", but i'm not sure of "global" because it doesn't do source code.

-Shows me "garbage" i have to mentally filter (world menu, packages, pragmas, ... ).

I think you are misinterpreting the goal of Spotter. It is meant to provide a uniform interface to search all sorts of objects that you see interesting, and it even offers a cheap way to tweak its behavior to your needs. Here is a post that describes it in more details:

http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/introducing-gtspotter/

But, you raise an interesting debate on the difference between selectors and implementations. One problem with the MessageBrowser is that it does not allow me to search through the results. In Spotter, you type "do:" and then with Cmd+Shift+Right, you will get the possibility of searching through the results.

But, let's take searching for selectors as an example of how to tweak Spotter to search for what you want. Install this method in your image and try searching with Spotter again. It's ugly, but it is working :):

GTSpotter>>spotterSelectorsFor: aStep

�� <spotterOrder: 0>

| processor |

processor := aStep listProcessor.

processor

title: 'Selectors';

filter: [ :originalQuery :stream |

|query selectors |

query := originalQuery trimBoth asLowercase.

query isEmpty ifFalse: [

selectors := Set new.

SystemNavigation default allBehaviorsDo: [:class |��

class selectorsDo:[ :selector |��

((selectors includes: selector) not and: [ selector beginsWith: query ]) ifTrue: [

selectors add: selector.

selectors size > 5 ifFalse: [��

stream addObject: selector inProcessor: processor ]]]].

selectors ] ];

actLogic: [ :each | self systemNavigation browseAllImplementorsOf: each ]

-Only shows me 5 (implementation) results at the time.

You can actually dive into those results and refine the search. If you press Cmd+Shift+RightArrow you will get all the results in the category. We know that this feature is not well offered and we will work on making it more obvious. In the meantime, please give it a try and let me know if it improves the situation.

��

- Its window misses the useful qualities of a regular one, which are in many cases useful (sometimes i want to keep the list of implementations/senders open). I don't understand the motivation of this absence, why is better to not have/implement them than to do so?��

Spotter is meant to first solve the problem of helping you find something and then get out of the way without having you manage the window. For this reason, its window is volatile.

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Also i don't understand the motivation of its fixed size/position, i find them annoying, a centered rectangle which impedes me to see anything else and of a size which also makes me hard to read it contents and forces me to scroll, and i "can't" do anything about it because it is fixed, seems a warning sign.��

What is a warning sign?

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Spotlight��opens on a corner giving me the choice of seeing something else if i wanted to.

Given that Spotlight also does not offer a window, I understand that you do not object to the volatile window, but to the size, right?

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-Because it searches implementations instead of selectors it avoids MessageBrowser which (to me) offers a much richer experience for browsing impementations/senders (dual views, more info of implementations like its package, more actions).

What do you mean by dual view? Do you mean the preview of sources? If yes, you should take the latest version of Pharo and take a look again. Here is a post that explains that part:

http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/boosting-gtspotter-with-preview/

I want to stress one more time that this is my personal opinion for myself, and while i probably won't use the tool

I think you will :).

��

i think that��Spotlight and��Spotter should coexist as other tools do (like Workspace and Playground) because one tool can't fit all mindsets/preferences.

Sure. But, what makes you say they do not coexist (I did not see this argument above)?

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Does anyone know why was Spotlight removed from distribution v4?

Because Spotter is meant to replace it and go beyond it.

Cheers,

Doru

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��
Cheers,
Doru

Thank you for being interested in my opinion.
Best,
Laura��

www.tudorgirba.com

"Every thing has its own flow"