pharo and stand along GUI projects

at this point, the only exposure i have had to pharo is using
seaside.. i hadn't thought much about using it to write stand alone
apps. not that i don't think it would be a good idea, i just haven't
needed to write and GUI apps in awhile..

anyway. i am thinking about starting an open source project to scratch
an itch. i would imagine it will scratch a great deal of itches, so i
would like it to be cross platform. i would like to make it look sharp
on all platforms, and be easy to install..

should i consider pharo for such a project?

are there some examples of stand alone apps i can see in real life?

if you would like a little more background on this, you can check out:

http://www.codingforhire.com/blog/The-Perfect-GTD-System

thanks!

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sergio
photographer, journalist, visionary

http://www.CodingForHire.com
http://www.coffee-black.com
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sergio_101 wrote:
> are there some examples of stand alone apps i can see in real life?

I'm not sure whether it's the kind of standalone application you have in
mind, but there's PLOPP (built on Squeak, not Pharo, though). See:

http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/2431
http://www.planet-plopp.com/


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you could revive the GTK port gwenael did for pharo.
I think that getting real interfaces is always important for pharo.

Stef

On Jun 5, 2010, at 5:15 AM, sergio_101 wrote:


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Hi:

May be I will point well know links here, but anyway, may be useful to you:

http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/1794 (Some screenshots of different
applications developed with Squeak)
http://www.weather-dimensions.com/ (The well know Dan Ingalls application)

And looking the new Preferences on Pharo 1.1 I really think that any
sort of application may be developed with Pharo with
a good look and feel.

HTH.


2010/6/5 sergio_101 <[hidden email]>:


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Sergio,

You are the second person in a week to mention GTD, now I'm going to have to read it ;)  Your blog entry on it is interesting, but I will take a devil's advocate position on GUI design: many of the tricks more the result of over-engineering and vendor-lock than they are necessary or helpful.  I will grant that good visual design is both valuable and *very* hard to do.  

I have written one GUI app using Pharo by following some of the Polymorph examples.  It is not perfect, but it works and I will no doubt be able to do better in the future thanks to the help and Prof Stef browsers in 1.1 and the associated blogs and examples.  There are indeed "tricks" of GUI creation, but a lot can be done with "just" the following (much of which we have courtesy of Pinesoft): (1) layout with proportional sizing and fixed offsets, plus splitters; (2) tabs; (3) wizards, which conceptually are mostly about layout with buttons forced into the lower corners; (3) lists of text, single and multi-selection, with optional icons associated with each item; (4) trees; (5) text editors, single and mult-line, read only as an option; (6) a way to display an image and optionally react to mouse events and perhaps modify and redisplay affected portions of the image; (7) modal and modeless dialog boxes; (8) progress indicators with optional cancel button (that works<g>).  One can create a toolbar easily enough, but it is a useful abstraction and should be formalized.  There are probably other things we could add to this list, but it is enough to build some very useful GUIs.

Among these, (6) is the ultimate customizable widget.  Many times I have seen people create custom view subclass in Dolphin when an ImagePresenter and some nearly trivial event handling would have done the job and been far less trouble to maintain.

Native widgets are over-rated IMHO.  That is not to say they have no value, and it would be nice to see us make them easy to use.  I am split on whether I would like to see the IDE tools appear as host widgets on Linux; it would probably be best to set (sorry) a preference for the image to run over multiple windows or to default to what we have now which can be very useful if I need to work on two or more images at one time.  That is rare, and most of the time I would like to see the OS' task bar include my Smalltalk tools.

Many of the above elements are present in

  http://www.anest.ufl.edu/users/wschwab/DSDN_news.htm

which has been superceded by a version that Ian created.  I have never learned to like his change from a horizontal to a vertical splitter, but among his changes were speed improvements that were beyond belief so I just thanked him for taking up the cause and used it like everyone else.  Speaking of Ian, he wrote a profiler for Dolphin that is wonderful; Pharo's comes somewhat close to it.  Ian also gave us his ChunkBrowser, and we have a gaping hole there.  Ghoul is not Ian's, but deserves attention, and we have nothing like it.  But I digress.

These screen captures show their age a bit, mostly in the text; Pharo improves on that if one chooses good fonts.  The widgets were native (Dolphin just works that way), but Polymorph would do just as well.  The search tab contents might be a bit hard to produce without Dolphin's view composer.

People go to great lengths to worry about executables.  As long as we have good lock-down tools, it is largely a non-issue.  My one stand-alone GUI built in Pharo has an icon sitting on my Gnome menu bar; it points to a shell script that launches the vm with the correct image - done.  Most problems I have with my Windows-based software over time get started because I did something Microsoft said to do and then they changed their collective mind on it.  

End of rant.  The short answer is that it can be done now; we have work to do to make things easier.

Bill


________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Stéphane Ducasse [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2010 7:08 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] pharo and stand along GUI projects

you could revive the GTK port gwenael did for pharo.
I think that getting real interfaces is always important for pharo.

Stef

On Jun 5, 2010, at 5:15 AM, sergio_101 wrote:


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On 05/06/2010 14:39, Schwab,Wilhelm K wrote:
> Native widgets are over-rated IMHO.  That is not to say they have no value, and it would be nice to see us make them easy to use.  I am split on whether I would like to see the IDE tools appear as host widgets on Linux; it would probably be best to set (sorry) a preference for the image to run over multiple windows or to default to what we have now which can be very useful if I need to work on two or more images at one time.  That is rare, and most of the time I would like to see the OS' task bar include my Smalltalk tools.
>
>    

The only real advantage I see for native widgets currently is that they
support things like accessibility, though Juan mentioned he's thought
about that for Morphic 3 which gives me hope :)

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Since single-fullwindow apps like garageband, finalcut, aperture et
al. are all very well accepted, a single-fullwindow app based on pharo
sounds possible.

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Douglas Brebner
<[hidden email]> wrote:
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Of course it is possible, and at times it would even be the correct thing to do.  The point is that we are currently limited to it, and that is always a sign that work remains to be done.


________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Richard Durr [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2010 12:42 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] pharo and stand along GUI projects

Since single-fullwindow apps like garageband, finalcut, aperture et
al. are all very well accepted, a single-fullwindow app based on pharo
sounds possible.

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Douglas Brebner
<[hidden email]> wrote:
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I largely agree, though the example of having the various SystemWindow instances able to float around the desktop can be seen as an advantage too.  There are times when I would want that, and times when I would prefer a single main window and the tools confined within it.  Otherwise, I agree that the commonly held idea that native==fast is more myth than fact.

An app using native decoration would take on the host appearance without the need for us to maintain emulation code.

Another potential advantage to multiple system windows is that it would force us to "play by the rules" with respect to input focus.  With many thanks to Pinesoft, that is far less of a concern in Pharo now than it was in Squeak.

Overall, emulate as much as you want.  That said, I look forward to a day when we will have a choice to do otherwise.

Bill


________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Douglas Brebner [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2010 12:28 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] pharo and stand along GUI projects

On 05/06/2010 14:39, Schwab,Wilhelm K wrote:
> Native widgets are over-rated IMHO.  That is not to say they have no value, and it would be nice to see us make them easy to use.  I am split on whether I would like to see the IDE tools appear as host widgets on Linux; it would probably be best to set (sorry) a preference for the image to run over multiple windows or to default to what we have now which can be very useful if I need to work on two or more images at one time.  That is rare, and most of the time I would like to see the OS' task bar include my Smalltalk tools.
>
>

The only real advantage I see for native widgets currently is that they
support things like accessibility, though Juan mentioned he's thought
about that for Morphic 3 which gives me hope :)

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On 05/06/2010 17:42, Richard Durr wrote:
> Since single-fullwindow apps like garageband, finalcut, aperture et
> al. are all very well accepted, a single-fullwindow app based on pharo
> sounds possible.
>
>    

By accessibility (a11y) I meant support for disabled use, such as
screenreaders and voice operation.
Also useful for hands or eyes free operation such as while driving or
other physical tasks :)


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> http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/1794 (Some screenshots of different
> applications developed with Squeak)
> http://www.weather-dimensions.com/ (The well know Dan Ingalls application)
>
> And looking the new Preferences on Pharo 1.1 I really think that any
> sort of application may be developed with Pharo with
> a good look and feel.

this all looks very promising.. my only concern is that i can deliver
something cross platform that is VERY simply to install.. the core of
the users will absolutely be non technical.. and i don't want them to
have to struggle..


--
----
peace,
sergio
photographer, journalist, visionary

http://www.CodingForHire.com
http://www.coffee-black.com
http://www.painlessfrugality.com
http://www.twitter.com/sergio_101
http://www.facebook.com/sergio101

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> People go to great lengths to worry about executables.  As long as we have good lock-down tools, it is largely a non-issue.  My one stand-alone GUI built in Pharo has an icon sitting on my Gnome menu bar; it points to a shell script that launches the vm with the correct image - done.  Most problems I have with my Windows-based


my biggest concern about executables is making sure that my users can
install and run the program with absolutely no issues..


--
----
peace,
sergio
photographer, journalist, visionary

http://www.CodingForHire.com
http://www.coffee-black.com
http://www.painlessfrugality.com
http://www.twitter.com/sergio_101
http://www.facebook.com/sergio101

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Use a one click image.




-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of sergio_101
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 10:52 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] pharo and stand along GUI projects

> People go to great lengths to worry about executables.  As long as we
> have good lock-down tools, it is largely a non-issue.  My one
> stand-alone GUI built in Pharo has an icon sitting on my Gnome menu
> bar; it points to a shell script that launches the vm with the correct
> image - done.  Most problems I have with my Windows-based


my biggest concern about executables is making sure that my users can install and run the program with absolutely no issues..


--
----
peace,
sergio
photographer, journalist, visionary

http://www.CodingForHire.com
http://www.coffee-black.com
http://www.painlessfrugality.com
http://www.twitter.com/sergio_101
http://www.facebook.com/sergio101

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