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Spec and an application menu

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Goubier Thierry

Re: Spec and an application menu

Le 18/02/2014 14:32, Johan Fabry a écrit :
>
> And I agree with Ben :-)
>
> Also, since a UI framework is something very large and complicated, with many possible uses, it's not realistic to expect a few developers to be able to do a 'big bang' release that is 100% feature complete. Spec, as is, is very complete and useful for a large variety of UIs. If the community uses it, it will become clear which features have been overlooked and hence which Spec improvements will need to be prioritized.

I do agree with the very large and complicated.

> So, use it and tell us about it :-)

Which is exactly what's happening now :)

Thierry
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Thierry Goubier
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kmo

Re: Spec and an application menu

In reply to this post by jfabry

Spec can only get better and more complete as time goes on. I'm sure the effort will be turn out to be worthwhile.

I'm just a bit disappointed that stuff like a menu widget is missing. It's not difficult to surmise what an application developer might want - there's probably less than a dozen basic widgets in a typical interface. Spec needs to have these covered. But is anyone even thinking of pharo for application developers? The Spec examples say it all - browsers, browsers, and more browsers - never anything that looks like an app.

jfabry

Re: Spec and an application menu

Just to motivate the browser example: we did try to find a different example but it's not so easy. If you want an application example, you need to explain the application and its' needs. The advantage of the browser is that you do not need to explain it. Also the browser has all the elements that you want to show in a simple example, including the reuse of models. Moreover this is without needing to provide (and explain) a bunch of application-specific code.

If you have an example that shows the same things than what we have now, taking into account the above requirements, and ending up at approx the same number of pages I would be most happy to write it up!

On Feb 18, 2014, at 4:03 PM, kmo <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Spec can only get better and more complete as time goes on. I'm sure the
> effort will be turn out to be worthwhile.
>
> I'm just a bit disappointed that stuff like a menu widget is missing. It's
> not difficult to surmise what an application developer might want - there's
> probably less than a dozen basic widgets in a typical interface. Spec needs
> to have these covered. But is anyone even thinking of pharo for application
> developers? The Spec examples say it all - browsers, browsers, and more
> browsers - never anything that looks like an app.
>
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Spec-and-an-application-menu-tp4744164p4744702.html
> Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>

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Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry
PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile

Sven Van Caekenberghe-2

Re: Spec and an application menu

I takes a long time and a lot of work to write decent documentation: once again, thanks Johan and Ben.

There is nothing to prevent others from writing extra tutorials, blog posts or whatever, showing how to build cool stuff using Spec. You can refer to the base documentation and then get going. We really need stuff like that, written by non-core developers, possibly taken other approaches to the subject.

Please contribute, you will be amazed at how much you will learn while doing so.

On 18 Feb 2014, at 20:17, Johan Fabry <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Just to motivate the browser example: we did try to find a different example but it's not so easy. If you want an application example, you need to explain the application and its' needs. The advantage of the browser is that you do not need to explain it. Also the browser has all the elements that you want to show in a simple example, including the reuse of models. Moreover this is without needing to provide (and explain) a bunch of application-specific code.
>
> If you have an example that shows the same things than what we have now, taking into account the above requirements, and ending up at approx the same number of pages I would be most happy to write it up!
>
> On Feb 18, 2014, at 4:03 PM, kmo <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> Spec can only get better and more complete as time goes on. I'm sure the
>> effort will be turn out to be worthwhile.
>>
>> I'm just a bit disappointed that stuff like a menu widget is missing. It's
>> not difficult to surmise what an application developer might want - there's
>> probably less than a dozen basic widgets in a typical interface. Spec needs
>> to have these covered. But is anyone even thinking of pharo for application
>> developers? The Spec examples say it all - browsers, browsers, and more
>> browsers - never anything that looks like an app.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Spec-and-an-application-menu-tp4744164p4744702.html
>> Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> ---> Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org <---
>
> Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry
> PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile
>
>

Benjamin Van Ryseghem (Pharo)

Re: Spec and an application menu

In reply to this post by jfabry

Spec provides today a new missing feature: a menu toolbar.

As recently suggested in the mailing list, a menu toolbar is often a requirement to build an application.

In order to provide an easy way to add a menu toolbar, Spec reuse **MenuModel** to generate the toolbar entries.

So now, a **MenuModel** can be used in two cases: to define a toolbar, or to define a contextual menu.

An example can be opened via

ApplicationWithToolbar new openWithSpec

Ben

Goubier Thierry

Re: Spec and an application menu

In reply to this post by jfabry

Le 18/02/2014 20:17, Johan Fabry a écrit :
> Just to motivate the browser example: we did try to find a different example but it's not so easy. If you want an application example, you need to explain the application and its' needs. The advantage of the browser is that you do not need to explain it. Also the browser has all the elements that you want to show in a simple example, including the reuse of models. Moreover this is without needing to provide (and explain) a bunch of application-specific code.

I think this is where the issue is. Smalltalk Browsers are very specific
GUI applications, and very old in their shape (old as an example of a
GUI from the 80's).

They do showcase very well the strength of the Spec component
composition, but, at the same time, they are quite different from an
average GUI application these days. Note that all "Business" Smalltalks
I know off these days (Dolphin, ST/X, Cincom) have menu bars and tool
bars in their browsers.

> If you have an example that shows the same things than what we have now, taking into account the above requirements, and ending up at approx the same number of pages I would be most happy to write it up!

Your typical text or model editor?

But it doesn't showcase Spec composition as well as the Browser.

Thierry
--
Thierry Goubier
CEA list
Laboratoire des Fondations des Systèmes Temps Réel Embarqués
91191 Gif sur Yvette Cedex
France
Phone/Fax: +33 (0) 1 69 08 32 92 / 83 95

kmo

Re: Spec and an application menu

In reply to this post by Benjamin Van Ryseghem (Pharo)

Great to see that application menus have arrived in Spec! Many thanks Benjamin. I suppose it shows how well Spec has been designed and coded that the menus could be added so quickly.