Using WebComponent for input objects

Hi Rob,

I can't offer help on your original question right now, but let
me point out something else:

IIRC, this will render to something like

       <input type="text" size="50">

which I, as a user of your class, would find *very* annoying.
Actually, it would cause me to have to duplicate some of your
efforts.

Why? Because *you* are deciding upon the size of the input
field, when it really should be *me* doing this. And even then,
it should not be done in HTML, but in CSS.

Hi Rob,

can you give me your code so I can take a look? a .mcz or .st would be
fine.

There is a repository here : http://www.squeaksource.com/AidaContributed
If it's good and useful then it could be added to Aida later.

WebComponent is meant to be used for more complex, standalone, ajaxified components and not elements as simple as radio button is.

About #build method: it is used to build a component, but of course someone must call it. It can be called from #initialize, from #printWebPageFor: or even #printHTMLPageOn:for: .

When it is called depends on how late you'd like to build a component. Sometimes it is good to be build as early as possible, sometimes there are needs to build as late as possible, that is just before the component is rendered to the HTML.

It can also be called from Ajax calls to rebuild the component and that was the main reason it is implemented as separate #build method and not in #prinWwebPageFor: as usual.

In recent aida versions, at least for Squeak, WebComponent new call
#build method.

On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 09:50:21 -0400

"Rob Rothwell" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I'll keep that in mind!  I was actually just trying to throw together an
> example of an input field of some kind in a WebComponent and didn't take the
> time to add a #size parameter...

If you define the size attribute of an input field, the browser is
allowed to refuse input after you entered the specified number of
characters. It's a nice gesture (?) that it's also influencing the size
of the field.

If you only want to provide a certain size, CSS is the tool of choice.

The same is true for the rows and cols specification of textarea, btw.

On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 10:41:34 -0400

"Rob Rothwell" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Nico tells me all I need is a good weekend... ;)

nah ... browse through the CSS stuff at w3schools.com, to get an inkling
of what kind of properties there are. They are not as many as they look
like. Next remember some simple rules for selecting elements:

.identifier {} refers to all elements with class="identifier"
#identifier {} refers to the single element with id="identifier"
identifier {} refers to all elements with tag <identifier>

You can enumerate several selectors to assign them the same
rule
       .class , .id , tag { whatever: value; }

You can make finer distinctions by specifying hierarchies

       div.nav a { display: block; }

renders the links in <div class="nav"><a>1</a><a>2</a></div>
as blocks, i.e. one atop another.

That's about the 20% of CSS knowledge that get 80% of the work done.

Do yourself a favor and
 * learn to use firebug
 * require your users to run Firefox, Safari or Opera
 * shoo^H^H^H^H ignore them if they have problems with IE6 or older

s.
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On Sun, 6 Jul 2008 11:10:43 -0400

"Rob Rothwell" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Would you recommend Firefox 3.0 or just stick with the general release for
> now?

AFAIK, FF3 *is* the current general release :-)

It is advertised to be faster and less resource hungry, so it might be
worth a try. OTOH, it probably comes with a few new bugs, too, so
it might pay off to let it mature for a while.

> Any suggestions on learning to use firebug (this lets you "inspect" the
> generated elements, yes?)

This lets you select (with visual feedback) the elements of the html
tree, gives you access (read/write) to the defined and calculated CSS
properties, and is also tremendously useful for stepping through
Javascript code. You *must* have this, if you're developing a
non-trivial web application.

As for learning, I'd recommend the trial-and-error method. There is
documentation on the firebug home page, but I have not read it :-)