Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!unmvax!ogccse!sparky!puklich
From: puklich@sparky.UUCP (Blayne Puklich)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Smalltalk Interface Builder
Keywords: interface builder smalltalk
Message-ID: <2941@sparky.UUCP>
Date: 29 Nov 89 20:46:16 GMT
References: <4692@netcom.UUCP>
Reply-To: puklich@sparky.UUCP (Blayne Puklich)
Organization: North Dakota State University, Fargo
Lines: 67

In article <4692@netcom.UUCP> cooper@netcom.UUCP (Ken Cooper) writes:
>I've received several requests for information about the interface builder
>we're working on, so I thought I'd post a little information to satisfy
>curiosity.  Some portions of the design are not yet finalized, so we invite
>comments and requests.
>
>The interface builder is a part of a set of tools we're working on to help in
>programming GUI 'applications' in Smalltalk V/286 and Smalltalk V/Mac.  We may
[ stuff deleted ]
>released within the button.  If you're used to MVC, this model brings the View
>and Controller into one package, avoiding much of the spaghetti so typical of
>Panes and Dispatchers.
[ stuff deleted ]
>these components.  If you're familiar with NextStep or Prototyper, this is
>very similar: one creates an interface by dragging its component widgets off a
>palette, editing each of them individually, and then saving the unit as an
>instance.  Unlike these systems, the interface and code can be changed and
>executed interactively;  one can watch one's objects in action as the
>interface is built.
>
>To deal with handling all the resulting instances, we've created a mechanism
>for saving and retrieving instances by name or keywords, with a facility for
>saving unused instances to disk to avoid bulging images. This will have a
>front end "finder" similar to the Macintosh's SFGetFile dialog box, with
>keywords as the mechanism for limiting a search rather than directories.

This sounds like a very good idea; I'm suprised I haven't heard of it yet.
I'm relatively new to Smalltalk (Smalltalk V/Mac), so that may be the reason.
That means I know exactly what is meant by the "spaghetti typical to panes
and dispatchers."  That's the trickiest part about learning Smalltalk, but
even though it is important to know.

What is described will no doubt be a welcome alternative to Prototyper,
which I'm somewhat familiar with.  Prototyper generates GUI code in Pascal or
C for the Macintosh for those of you who don't know what it is.  Being able
to do this in the Smalltalk way of doing things will definitely make the job
of creating GUIs even easier, since in addition to the GUI one could also
create the application-specific code at the same time, interactively.

I can also see this as a better tool for prototyping applications than what
we currently have available for the Macintosh.  The current method is to
basically create the whole application.  One can use Prototyper to create
the GUI part, but that only provides a look and feel for the application,
and from my experiences with Prototyper, the GUI code it generates is much
less than optimal.  I myself would never use what it generates in a finished
application.

The interface for retrieving pieces of the image will also be a welcome
addition to fileIn and fileOut.  This should make finding chunks of code
much easier if it allows keyword searching.

I can't think of any suggestions offhand, since what is described sounds
good already.

I appreciate the posting about the design of this new product.  I know that
I'll be looking for more information about this in the future.  If it does
what is described in this posting, I know I'll be the first to want the
product (well, maybe not quite the first).

||+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++||
|| Blayne Puklich      nopuklic@Plains.NoDak.EDU  "I think I'm going       ||
|| NDSU Student ACM Vice-Chair                          bald..."           ||
|| North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND        -- Rush, from Caress    ||
|| (701) 237-4408                                     of Steel, 1975       ||
|| Damn it's cold up here in the Great White North!                        ||
||     Alternate address: puklich@Sparky.NoDak.EDU (Until Dec 7th).        ||
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