MetacelloBrowser status?

Alexandre,

Have you had a chance to get your students to use the MetacelloBrowser?

For me the MetacelloBrowser is very stable - I think I have solved all
of the update problems, so the information displayed always seems to be
correct.

Last night I think I tweaked the last few things that were nagging my
about the menu bar items ---- the development support menu items:

   +Configuration
   +Dev
   Update Dev
   Checkpoint Dev
   Release Dev

which support the Development cycle outlined in my blog post[1].

Recently I have added support for creating and loading from archive
repositories ... the functionality that Stef, Doru and company have been
interested in..

I have also added several commands that reduce the need to bring up a
MonticelloBrowser .... In my recent work I have only brought up the
MonticelloBrowser when I needed to confirm that things are working:).
YOu can do things like the following:

   - add a repository
   - package history
   - open the repository for a package
   - revert the package
   - save the package
   - view changes

where package is a loaded package or configuration.

I think it is very close to time to start getting early feedback from
other folks ...

I feel like the MetacelloBrowser has been customized for my working
style/needs and I would like to get feedback from others as to
additional functionality that might be needed as well as usability.

I would like to hear of alternate development cycle scenarios ... I have
some ideas as to how alternate development cycles could be incorporated
in the tool, but I need to hear from other folks with somewhat detailed
descriptions of the differences in the cycle ..

I know that the development cycle for Moose is different since it relies
on baselines and such, but I am not familiar with the details involved
and the busy work that doing the integration entails and I think that it
would be straight forward to add support ...

Anyway, I would like to plan on marking 1.59 as #stable sometime next
week and then ask folks to give the browser a try and let us know what
needs to be done before we contemplate a general release ...

I haven't tried running the browser recently in pre-1.1.1 versions of
Pharo and I haven't tried running on Squeak at all, although I have been
using it extensively from GemStone, so I would expect that the
OmniBrowser-based MetacelloBrowser would work pretty well ...

Let me know what you think...

Dale

[1] http://gemstonesoup.wordpress.com/#walkthrough

> Have you had a chance to get your students to use the MetacelloBrowser?

It will take a couple of days more actually. I think we should go ahead. Additional experiences will come on their own.

> For me the MetacelloBrowser is very stable - I think I have solved all of the update problems, so the information displayed always seems to be correct.

Yes. I would like to work on the documentation and website. Ordering the menu items is also important.

> Recently I have added support for creating and loading from archive repositories ... the functionality that Stef, Doru and company have been interested in..

Cool!

Cool

> I think it is very close to time to start getting early feedback from other folks ...

Yes. Documentation is important. I will enhance the Help to display the documentation of each command.

> I feel like the MetacelloBrowser has been customized for my working style/needs and I would like to get feedback from others as to additional functionality that might be needed as well as usability.

There is already many functionalities.

> I would like to hear of alternate development cycle scenarios ... I have some ideas as to how alternate development cycles could be incorporated in the tool, but I need to hear from other folks with somewhat detailed descriptions of the differences in the cycle ..

Yes. One way to implement this could be:

MBProcess>>listOfButtons
MBProcess>>buttonHelp

MBProcess subclass: #DaleProcess
DaleProcess>>updateDev
DaleProcess>>checkpointDev
DaleProcess>>releaseDev

MBProcess subclass: #AlexProcess
AlexProcess >>updateDev
AlexProcess >>releaseDev

Something like this no?

> Anyway, I would like to plan on marking 1.59 as #stable sometime next week and then ask folks to give the browser a try and let us know what needs to be done before we contemplate a general release ...

I am perfectly fine with this.

> I haven't tried running the browser recently in pre-1.1.1 versions of Pharo and I haven't tried running on Squeak at all, although I have been using it extensively from GemStone, so I would expect that the OmniBrowser-based MetacelloBrowser would work pretty well ...

I have simply used it on Pharo. It works pretty well.

Alexandre
--
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Alexandre Bergel  http://www.bergel.eu
^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;.

On Apr 9, 2011, at 5:07 AM, Alexandre Bergel wrote:

>> Have you had a chance to get your students to use the MetacelloBrowser?
>
> It will take a couple of days more actually. I think we should go ahead. Additional experiences will come on their own.
>
>> For me the MetacelloBrowser is very stable - I think I have solved all of the update problems, so the information displayed always seems to be correct.
>
> Yes. I would like to work on the documentation and website. Ordering the menu items is also important.

I am hoping to gather more feedback on functionality before looking at structure (I address this in more detail in subsequent comments)

Are you considering automatically generated HelpBrowser content ... mixed with some custom content? Each command could have a helpContent method with more explanation than is included in a typical tool-tip. It is very easy to generate help browser content ...

I'll probably take a stab at this over the weekend, since I've already done this for Metacello.

>
>> I feel like the MetacelloBrowser has been customized for my working style/needs and I would like to get feedback from others as to additional functionality that might be needed as well as usability.
>
> There is already many functionalities.

Yes, but for a UI it is important that the user be able to perform all of the necessary tasks without having to perform a bunch of mouse clicks to get there ... "each task should be one click away" ... it turns out that there _are_ a bunch of things that need/could be done when working with configurations so the challenge is to put together a ui design that reduces the complexity while providing all of the functionality ... to this point I haven't worried (too much) about nice ui design, I have focussed on collecting the needed functionality ... the rule was to add a command for each task that forced my to go to open another window at times the solution was to automatically open the window and at others it was to duplicate the functionality in a metacelloBrowser command ... but to this point I have been accumulating tasks not organizing them ... I think that there are additional tasks that _should_ be accumulated ... once the accumulation phase is completed, we can start the organization phase which may involve tossing some functionality, creating hierarchical menus(?) or other approaches to reduce the complexity of the interface ...

Yes, something along those lines .... actually I was thinking along the lines of a "command filter" function that could be associated with a configuration (class-side methods) since I think that the processes used in managing a project should be consistent...

This is why I'm interested in hearing about alternate development sequences so we can determine how such a filter should be applied ...
>
>> Anyway, I would like to plan on marking 1.59 as #stable sometime next week and then ask folks to give the browser a try and let us know what needs to be done before we contemplate a general release ...
>
> I am perfectly fine with this.

I have a handful of things that I'd like to do before calling 1.59 #stable, so when I get these puppies nailed I'll release 1.59 and we can ask people to take a serious look at the Browser.

>
>> I haven't tried running the browser recently in pre-1.1.1 versions of Pharo and I haven't tried running on Squeak at all, although I have been using it extensively from GemStone, so I would expect that the OmniBrowser-based MetacelloBrowser would work pretty well ...
>
> I have simply used it on Pharo. It works pretty well.

I did a little more work last night and I've got the basic OB window working in Squeak 4.2 ...

Dale