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Aida "Visual Designer"

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Rob Rothwell

Aida "Visual Designer"

Hello,

I (yes, I) have been trying to teach a co-worker Smalltalk. The first thing a new programmer wants to see (especially someone from a Microsoft VB background) is some interaction and output (click a button, see something happen), so I was using Aida to do this since it is so simple to do this with.

However, his immediate response was, "If the browser can create accessors for me, why should I have to create an "App" class with a "viewMain," etc..."

So...I have been working on some code generation for him, and was going to create an application administration module, sort of like Seaside has (only easier to use!). You know...select your model, what port you want to listen on, the name of your site, which style class you want to use...that sort of thing.

Anyway, the natural follow-up to this is to ask the question: "Would a web based visual designer be useful?" I know I am new to Aida, but with a few basic principles to create a parts bin of some kind and drag controls around in the browser, it seems like it would be pretty doable. You could attach the app to a domain model and from there attach components to aspects of the model.

There would, of course, be some "behind your back" code generation going on, and I'm not sure how you would handle fixing things up when someone simply changed the code by hand.

Of course, once you've gone that far you could put a workspace, browser, transcript, etc... in those prototype-ui windows you have been demo-ing, and away you go.

Do you think something like this would be useful, or does it somehow go against the Smalltalk philosophy?

Just wondering, because everyone I try to show this (Smalltalk) to is amazed by the efficiency to deal with the problem domain but doesn't want to give up all their Visual Studio-like features in exchange, and because of the framework you have written I think this is actually something I could do with a few pointers to get me started!

Rob

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Janko Mivšek

Re: Aida "Visual Designer"

Hi Rob,

To make a visual designer, at least for beginners to start with Aida
easier, to provide them a smoother path to usual smalltalk web
programming, that's not bad idea. But not easy to do, IMHO.

Nicolas, do you think that Prototype-UI technology can be used and
extended for that? And we need some very good JavaScript guy for
something like that I suppose ...

JAnko

Rob Rothwell wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I (yes, I) have been trying to teach a co-worker Smalltalk. The first
> thing a new programmer wants to see (especially someone from a Microsoft
> VB background) is some interaction and output (click a button, see
> something happen), so I was using Aida to do this since it is so simple
> to do this with.
>
> However, his immediate response was, "If the browser can create
> accessors for me, why should I have to create an "App" class with a
> "viewMain," etc..."
>
> So...I have been working on some code generation for him, and was going
> to create an application administration module, sort of like Seaside has
> (only easier to use!). You know...select your model, what port you want
> to listen on, the name of your site, which style class you want to
> use...that sort of thing.
>
> Anyway, the natural follow-up to this is to ask the question: "Would a
> web based visual designer be useful?" I know I am new to Aida, but with
> a few basic principles to create a parts bin of some kind and drag
> controls around in the browser, it seems like it would be pretty doable.
> You could attach the app to a domain model and from there attach
> components to aspects of the model.
>
> There would, of course, be some "behind your back" code generation going
> on, and I'm not sure how you would handle fixing things up when someone
> simply changed the code by hand.
>
> Of course, once you've gone that far you could put a workspace, browser,
> transcript, etc... in those prototype-ui windows you have been demo-ing,
> and away you go.
>
> Do you think something like this would be useful, or does it somehow go
> against the Smalltalk philosophy?
>
> Just wondering, because everyone I try to show this (Smalltalk) to is
> amazed by the efficiency to deal with the problem domain but doesn't
> want to give up all their Visual Studio-like features in exchange, and
> because of the framework you have written I think this is actually
> something I could do with a few pointers to get me started!
>
> Rob
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Aida mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.aidaweb.si/mailman/listinfo/aida

--
Janko Mivšek
AIDA/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si
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Nicolas Petton

Re: Aida "Visual Designer"

Le dimanche 16 mars 2008 à 22:15 +0100, Janko Mivšek a écrit :
> Hi Rob,
>
> To make a visual designer, at least for beginners to start with Aida
> easier, to provide them a smoother path to usual smalltalk web
> programming, that's not bad idea. But not easy to do, IMHO.
>
> Nicolas, do you think that Prototype-UI technology can be used and
> extended for that?
Yes, Prototype-UI is well done, we could do that.
> And we need some very good JavaScript guy for
> something like that I suppose ...
Well...yes! That's the problem.

Nico
--
Nicolas Petton
http://nico.bioskop.fr
___
ooooooo
OOOOOOOOO
|Smalltalk|
OOOOOOOOO
ooooooo
\ /
[|]
--------------------------------
Ma clé PGP est disponible ici :
http://nico.bioskop.fr/pgp-key.html

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Rob Rothwell

Re: Aida "Visual Designer"

On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Nicolas Petton <[hidden email]> wrote:

Le dimanche 16 mars 2008 à 22:15 +0100, Janko Mivšek a écrit :

> Hi Rob,
>
> To make a visual designer, at least for beginners to start with Aida
> easier, to provide them a smoother path to usual smalltalk web
> programming, that's not bad idea. But not easy to do, IMHO.

Maybe not easy, but I bet it would attract more people than Morphic!

> Nicolas, do you think that Prototype-UI technology can be used and
> extended for that?

Yes, Prototype-UI is well done, we could do that.

Would you be able to give me tips to get started...just to see how it works?

> And we need some very good JavaScript guy for
> something like that I suppose ...

Well...yes! That's the problem.

I have a friend that has helped me learn Smalltalk who is working on his PhD in Computer Science at Ohio State University. A lot of the work he does is (I believe) in JavaScript and Objective C, but he still has a great fondness for Squeak.

If you can point me towards understanding how you have integrated Aida with JavaScript, I'll see if he can help me learn what I need to learn!

Rob

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