It's easy to read an article like this one - which notes that the vast majority of people don't know that ctrl/command-F executes a search - and chuckle about our superiority. What it should do is makes us sit back and think, because it's clear that the "simple" UI's that are presented to people aren't as simple as we think they are. There's a reason that the touch interface pioneered by Apple with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad has caught on so well - it finally operates the way most people want a device to operate. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
I saw this (that link will pass through a small registration UI if you haven't visited the archives before, I think) pop up in the VWNC mailing list today:
WANTED for xtream coolness and usefulness: Xtreams-Grid The delinquent has last been seen on the 11th of July, when he disclosed his shocking crimes. He left his home and went into hiding shortly after. Every hint is appreciated. Please call 1-800-GRID or report here.
While it's amusing, it's also a good question. I saw the grid announcement as well, and then... nothing. I know it's not the developers of that code keeping it quiet on purpose; that's not their style. So it's a Cincom question. Anyone? Bueller?
Update: I spoke to Arden Thomas, CST Product Manager about this. Details here.
I just spoke to Arden Thomas, the Product Manager for Cincom Smalltalk. here's what he told me: Xtreams continues to be open source software. The grid implementation, on the other hand, is not open source - it's "take two" on what Cincom has been calling Polycephaly.
There was apparently concern over the naming - using the Xtreams name would have developers presume that the software - like Xtreams itself - was open source.
That's the good news, as it were - the entire kerfuffle (mentioned here) is a misunderstanding. The bad news? The utter lack of communication from Cincom. Yes, Arden graciously spoke to me about this, but I'm sure that he doesn't want to make personal phone calls to every single person with a question about this sort of thing. When questions like this arise, there really ought to be some kind of statement, even if it only amounts to "we regret the confusion, we'll have more details out shortly". The vast well of silence approach leads to questions, and worse - leads to people coming up with their own answers.
Ultimately, this kind of thing is a management failure. I'm happy that Arden was willing to reach out to me on this, and he deserves kudos for that.
Update: Here's the kind of community behavior that they are creating - I saw this at the end of a VWNC mailing list post, where someone was trying to explain how to solve a problem:
I'm not sure what the rules are on posting the code, and so I'm just providing the references.
When people are thinking that way, it's not a good thing.
Stéphane Ducasse got proceedings off to a flying start yesterday with an intensive introduction to Smalltalk for newcomers. Today, work continues on a number of projects including SUnit, Seaside, Pier, Gofer, SLAPS (an LDAP server implementation) and Spoon.
This Dave Buck and I speak about the automated layout tools he's been working on for VisualWorks. The podcast is being posted in two parts; episode 43 will be out next week with part two. If you want a visual idea as to what we're talking about, Dave posted a video update recently
You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
This Dave Buck and I speak about the automated layout tools he's been working on for VisualWorks. The podcast is being posted in two parts; episode 43 will be out next week with part two. If you want a visual idea as to what we're talking about, Dave posted a video update recently
You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
Anyone reading this blog knows that I'm an electric car skeptic, and this Wired article about how "chargers are coming" doesn't change that. Consider this, near the end of the piece:
So the cars are coming. The infrastructure will follow. There’s no way of knowing at this point just what it will look like, but it almost certainly won’t look like the fueling infrastructure we’re using now. There are nearly 160,000 gas stations in the United States. We simply cannot match that, EV advocates said, nor do we need to. EV advocates say we need to move beyond our habit of driving until the tank is empty. Driving an EV means plugging in at night and topping off when you can during the day. It’s called “opportunistic charging,” and it is second-nature for EV owners.
I've been doing that with laptops for years, and it's not terribly enjoyable. Second nature or not, it's still a pain to wander around looking for a plug. It would be more than a pain to add an hour to a trip because I had to hunt for a plug. Sure, airports are adding plugs, and the thought is, car chargers will proliferate the same way. Here's the problem, as I see it, taken from personal experience:
I travel to Dallas regularly now. My morning commute (hotel to worksite) is usually in the 18-20 mile range (Grand Prarie is kind of a hotel desert). That's well within the range of an EV you say, so renting one should be a no brainer. Except... I drive out to visit my sister once a week when I'm there, and that's a 70 mile round trip. That starts getting to be a problem range-wise, especially when you factor in the need to run AC full blast for many, many months in the Dallas area - the normal range of an EV is going to drop like a rock when you have to run AC constantly. Sure, I can plug the car in at her house, but: am I expected to make my stay a few hours longer than planned just so that I can drive back to my hotel? What if I need to drive to the local Apple store - I have Apple Care, and I could have a transient issue crop up. That's not a short haul, either.
Now consider urban driving - especially given the new urbanist desire to have less parking, and to have whatever parking there is be street parking. How do you charge in that situation? Retailers are going to start happily adding charge stations in the parking lots? For one thing, see this article about Costco. For another, consider what services like Amazon are already doing to big box retailers - margins in retail have always been slim, and I expect the only change in that space will be negative. Borders will not be the last, or only, big box vendor to get hammered out of existence by online shopping.
I could be wrong, but I see EVs as a niche application. For urban (or near urban) dwellers who need to drive a little, they might make sense (then again, a Smart Car makes even more sense for that need).
Today's Smalltalk 4 You continues the VA Smalltalk Seaside tutorial by reusing the post tool to edit existing posts. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
In this section we'll reuse the posting tool we've already built to edit existing posts.
First, we'll modify the #renderPostOn: method in BlogListView - we want an edit link to appear for logged in users:
renderPost: post on: html
html div
class: 'post';
with: [html strong: [html text: post title].
html break.
self session currentUser
ifNotNil: [self renderEditLinkOn: html for: post.
html break].
html
html: post content;
break;
text: 'Posted on: ', post timestamp printString;
break]
We check the session, and if there's a logged in user, we drop in an edit link. Next, we need that #renderEditLinkOn:for: method in BlogListView:
renderEditLinkOn: html for: post
html anchor
callback: [self openEditorOn: post];
with: 'Edit'
That creates our link - we still need to write the code for using the link:
openEditorOn: post
| editor |
editor := BlogPostView new.
editor post: post.
(self
show: editor)
onAnswer: [:ans | ans ifTrue: [BlogStorage default updatePost: editor post]]
Here we again see the #show:OnAnswer: control flow in VA Seaside use - but we are using the answer. recall that the post editor answers true or false - we use that in this code to determine whether or not to save the post. Since the view used in #show:onAnswer: is done at the end of that, we revert back to the main view in either case. Finally, the #updatePost: method in BlogStorage is a placeholder - in this example, all storage is in memory only:
updatePost: aPost
"no op, since it's all in memory"
^self
That's it - we are now reusing the post tool for editing.
That about wraps it up for today - next time, we'll get into the posting tool itself. To see that in action, let's login:
Note the new Edit link - try going through the blogView link - you won't see it:
Follow the edit link for one of the posts - you'll see something like this:
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
Unlike other software products, web applications are visible world-wide by default. To be beneficial for users world-wide, especially for the increasing number of users from non-English speaking countries, companies involved in the internationalization of their business have to consider website localization. Website localization is indispensable to make the webside a global success. However, base Smalltalk systems, Seaside and previous versions of seaBreeze are minimally prepared for localization. The presentation explains fundamentals of Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10N) and deduces an Internationalization and Localization Model in Smalltalk, implemented in SeaBreeze. Concepts of localization processes and tools are demonstrated, including Machine Translation (MT) and Translation Memories (TM). A demo of seaBreeze 5.0 concludes the presentation.
Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at the empty() function in JQuery - which lets us select a page element and empty out its child element(s). If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.
Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.
To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Smalltalk Solutions is being renamed to the "Smalltalk Industry Conference" (STIC), and the 2012 show will be in Biloxi, Mississippi. Georg Heeg just announced the following at ESUG 2011:
I just made this announcement at ESUG in Edinburgh:
Smalltalk Solutions has been renamed to Smalltalk Industry Conference (STIC)
STIC 2012 will be in Biloxi, Mississippi
STIC 2012 will open Sunday March 18th, 2012 in the evening
STIC 2012 conference days will be Monday to Wednesday March 19th to 21st, 2012
STIC 2012 will be followed by a Camp Smalltalk on Thursday and Friday
It was noticeable here - a few things fell, and the whole house vibrated - I felt it on my concrete steps leaving the house during it. Short - only lasted something like 30 seconds, but very startling for this part of the country. I see tweets saying it was felt as far north as Toronto, so I hope it's not a precursor to the New Madrid fault waking up...
Today's Smalltalk 4 You continues the VA Smalltalk Seaside tutorial with Ajax. We'll change the filtering links on the main view to update using Javascript rather than a full page submit. Today we'll do that using Scriptaculous; in the next tutorial, we'll use JQuery. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
In this section we'll add Ajax to our Seaside application. Today we'll use Scriptaculous - in the next tutorial, we'll use JQuery. The configuration and code for both are largely the same, and so far as the end user of your applications is concerned, things behave the same way.
First, we need to go back into the configuration screens (as we did for the custom session work). We'll need to do the same thing for both the blogView and blogLogin entry points we've defined. Scroll down in the configuration section to libraries, and select configure. In the image below, I've already added the two libraries in question; your listbox will be blank:
Select PTGoogleLibrary (Prototype) and SUGoogleLibrary (Scriptaculous) on the left - use the arrow button to move them to the right:
Now scroll down to the Ok button to apply the change, and then repeat the process for the other entry point:
Now we need to get into the code that will use these libraries that we just ensured will be loaded. First, we'll redefine BlogMenuView to hold a reference to the list component - so that when links are clicked, we can direct the list component to re-render without forcing a full page submit:
Now we'll change the way #renderContentOn: works, so that it renders the filtering links as ajax enabled links:
renderContentOn: html
self entries
do: [:each |
(each key = 'New Post')
ifTrue: [self renderStandardLinkOn: html for: each]
ifFalse: [self renderAjaxLinkOn: html for: each]]
separatedBy: [html space]
The #renderStandardLinkOn:for: method looks a lot like the above method used to look; the changes are in #renderAjaxLinkOn:for:
renderStandardLinkOn: html for: entry
"Render this component"
html anchor
callback: entry value;
with: entry key
renderAjaxLinkOn: html for: entry
"Render this component"
html anchor onClick:
(html updater
id: 'listid';
callback: [:renderer | self listComponent updateFilterFrom: entry key.
renderer render: self listComponent]);
url: '#';
with: entry key
Note the #onClick: method - it sets up the link to use Javascript. The #updater method is how we hook in Scriptaculous. The callback here is a block, and that's where we take advantage of the link to the list component - we tell it to re-render within the named div on click. The last thing we need to do is add #updateFilterFrom: to the BlogListView class, so that the updater can reset the filter just before it re-renders:
That's all the code we need - now just open the blogView interface in your browser, and switch between the two filters (all and today) - you should see them updating without a full page submit. Next time, we'll redo this to use JQuery
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
Steve Jobs is stepping down - probably due to his ongoing health issues. Apple has been a really interesting company under his leadership; let's hope that we don't see a return to the first post-Jobs era.
Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.
To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You continues the VA Smalltalk Seaside tutorial with Ajax. We'll change the filtering links on the main view to update using JQuery rather than Scriptaculous. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
In this section we'll change our ajax usage from Scriptaculous to JQuery - this will require a small configuration change, and then the modification of one method. First, go back to the configuration screens for your Seaside system. We'll have to modify both the blogView and blogLogin we set up. ONce you get into the configurations screens for the first of those, scroll down to libraries and open that section up. Move PTGoogleLibrary and PTSTLibrary out, and add in JQGoogleLibrary. If you've forgotten how to get to those screens, then go back to this earlier tutorial
With that out of the way, we need to make one change in class BlogMenuView - #renderAjaxLinkOn:for: needs to have the link callback set up for JQuery:
renderAjaxLinkOn: html for: entry
"Render this component"
html anchor onClick:
((html jQuery: #listid) load
html: [:h |
self listComponent updateFilterFrom: entry key.
h render: self listComponent]);
url: '#';
with: entry key
Next time we'll look at adding CSS to our application
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
This Dave Buck and I finish our conversation about the automated layout tools he's been working on for VisualWorks. The podcast is being posted in two parts; episode 42 was out last week. If you want a visual idea as to what we're talking about, Dave posted a video update recently
You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
This Dave Buck and I finish our conversation about the automated layout tools he's been working on for VisualWorks. The podcast is being posted in two parts; episode 42 was out last week. If you want a visual idea as to what we're talking about, Dave posted a video update recently
You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.
If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!
If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!
If you downloaded the podcast early today, you might want to grab it again - I got Squeak News from Randal after I posted, so I merged that in and pushed new audio files.