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Where do preference help strings come from?

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Eliot Miranda-2

Where do preference help strings come from?

Hi All,

I'm looking at the help string for the reverseWindowStagger preference

'reverseWindowStagger:

If true, a reverse-stagger strategy is used for determining where newly launched windows will be placed; if false, a direct- stagger strategy is used.'

I can't see this anywhere in code. Where did this string come from in the first place?

_,,,^..^,,,_

best, Eliot

Bert Freudenberg

Re: Where do preference help strings come from?

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 7:08 PM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi All,

I'm looking at the help string for the reverseWindowStagger preference

'reverseWindowStagger:
If true, a reverse-stagger strategy is used for determining where newly launched windows will be placed; if false, a direct- stagger strategy is used.'

I can't see this anywhere in code. Where did this string come from in the first place?

I'd guess in a changeset preamble?

- Bert -

timrowledge

Re: Where do preference help strings come from?

> On 08-06-2017, at 10:30 AM, Bert Freudenberg <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 7:08 PM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I'm looking at the help string for the reverseWindowStagger preference
>
> 'reverseWindowStagger:
> If true, a reverse-stagger strategy is used for determining where newly launched windows will be placed; if false, a direct- stagger strategy is used.'
>
> I can't see this anywhere in code. Where did this string come from in the first place?
>
> I'd guess in a changeset preamble?

Nope; it’s actually an instvar that was initialised in a method that appears to have been removed; I found it in an incredibly ancient changes file from when I was working on an a version of the near-mythical little-endian Bitblt in 1999. I think that may have triggered the nuclear accident that blasted the moon out of orbit…people should be careful when running experimental code.

It was Preferences class>initializeHelpMessages sw 6/29/1999 14:33 and I also found a variant in the original Scratch changes file where it had been split up a little as Preferences class>helpMsgsQThroughZ jm 7/1/2004 22:28

Looks like overly zealous excision at some point.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Oxymorons: Legally drunk

David T. Lewis

Re: Where do preference help strings come from?

In reply to this post by Bert Freudenberg

On Thu, Jun 08, 2017 at 07:30:40PM +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 7:08 PM, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I'm looking at the help string for the reverseWindowStagger preference
> >
> > 'reverseWindowStagger:
> > If true, a reverse-stagger strategy is used for determining where newly
> > launched windows will be placed; if false, a direct- stagger strategy is
> > used.'
> >
> > I can't see this anywhere in code. Where did this string come from in the
> > first place?
> >
>
> I'd guess in a changeset preamble?
>
> - Bert -???

Following Bert's tip, I looked at Andreas' update history in http://files.squeak.org/history/.
The help messages were initialized with Preferences class>>initializedHelpMessages,
which Andreas added in 1999 in the 839WindowDrag-ar.cs change set.

Preferences class methodsFor: 'initialization' stamp: 'ar 4/19/1999 14:40'
initializeHelpMessages
"Preferences initializeHelpMessages"
HelpDictionary _ Dictionary new.
#(
<snip>

The method was still present in Squeak 3.0 and disappeared some time thereafter.
I can't quite figure out how or why it went missing, but it probably should be
restored to the trunk.

Dave