Esteban's ChangeLog week of 25 February 2019

> On 4 Mar 2019, at 08:00, [hidden email] wrote:
>
> Hello!
>
> This is my weekly ChangeLog, from 25 February 2019 to 3 March 2019.
> You can see it in a better format by going here: http://log.smallworks.eu/web/search?from=25/2/2019&to=3/3/2019
>
> ChangeLog
> =========
>
> 1 March 2019:
> -------------
>
> *    I have been working on introducing the concept of +Application+ to Spec2.
>    An application is the entry point of... well, any application you will do with Spec2. It will contain
>    information needed to make the application works in different contexts:
>    1) a theme
>    2) shared resources
>    3) the backend to use (Morphic)
>    4) access to standard dialogs, etc. (what now is found in UIManager).
>
>    It is hard because it implies a lot of other refactors:
>
>    * open/close of windows needs to pass through an application (to keep navigation working)
>    * An application needs to be present on each window opened.
>    * Windows needs to be the root of a presenter (and not just a holded variable in a ComposablePresenter)
>    * Initialization of windows now is made by calling a method: #initializeWindow:, this was already added, but now we need to generalise it.
>    * ...
>
>    Anyway, this is a lot of work and is taking more than desirable :(
>
>
> 26 February 2019:
> -----------------
>
> *    Spec 2 day:
>
>    1) fix a bug in GridLayout: calculous of column width when columns is not homogeneous was bad because
>    some morphs (labels, strings) needs to fit to contents (and it was not doing it).
>
>    2) Starting to introduce the concept of "Application": A window is not a good enough abstraction, we need
>    to use also the concept of application (several windows interacting, sharing resources, theme, etc.).
>
>
> 25 February 2019:
> -----------------
>
> *    Today I made some advances in Spec2:
>
>    1) I worked on the transmissions mini-framework. The ability to make easy transmissions
>    between components in Glamour was always something I liked it. So I did not want to lose
>    it in the transition from Glamour to Spec2.
>
>    I implemented a small layer on Spec presenters to be able to define input ports and output
>    ports. That way you can define transmissions "glamour style", with full power of Spec behind.
>
>    Someting like this is now possible:
>
>    ----
>    packages := self newList displayBlock: #name.
>    classes := self newList displayBlock: #name.
>    self transmit from: packages; to: classes; transform: #definedClasses.
>    ----
>
>    2) Also, I added some functionality to allow to add arbitrary presenters to the new layouts.
>
>    This is useful when doing forms, for example: you do not want to instantiate all the time a
>    LabelPresenter to add a label. That way, you can now define things like this:
>
>    ----
>    SpecGridLayout new
>     columnHomogeneous: false;
>     add: 'Name' at: 1@1;
>     add: #nameTextInput at: 2@1;
>     add: 'Host' at: 1@2;
>     add: #hostTextInput at: 2@2;
>     add: 'Port' at: 1@3;
>     add: #portNumberInput at: 2@3;
>     yourself
>    ----
>
>    This will probably deserve a re-work later, but is already a lot better :)
>
>    3) I implementer a new type of presenter: +ActionBarPresenter+. This is similar to a toolbar,
>    but its purpose is to add some actions (something like the small button pad you see in macOS and
>    others). Since they do not serve same purpose, usability is not always the same and then they need
>    to be separated.
>
>
> cheers!
> Esteban
>