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st4u

ST 4U 222: A Look Around the Composition Editor

April 20, 2012 8:08:05.524

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes a look at some of the ways that VA Assist Pro helps out with the Composition Editor. 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:

VA Assist Pro.

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:


Today we'll look at where the widgets that you use in the Parts tool are picked and placed, and how VA Assist Pro makes that task a bit easier. To start with, examine the left hand side of the screen. The toolbars on the left have widgets: the leftmost is categories. Select one, and you get widgets in that "Set":

Widgets

Quite often, you'll want some of the more commonly used parts - and that's where VA Assist Pro comes in. Open that up from the "Options" menu:

VA Assist

If you switch to the "Parts" tab, you'll see some of the more commonly used widgets. This often makes it easier to build UIs, as they will mostly be made up of stock parts:

Common Parts

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.

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Amber Live

April 20, 2012 11:01:49.000

I just ran across a demo of an Amber app:

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Mass Effect Futures

April 21, 2012 2:37:38.514

I was giving this more thought while I flew home earlier this evening - the statements from BioWare indicate that they have "plenty" of room for more stories, set before the events of Mass Effect 3:

In the newly released The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3 app, executive producer Casey Hudson says that the events witnessed in Mass Effect 3 is as far as he wishes to go.

While not yet sure what the franchise will tackle next, “whatever we do would likely happen before or during the events of Mass Effect 3, not after,” he says.

Here's why I think that's wrong:

  • The First Contact War? Completely meaningless. We know how things end (badly) a few decades later, so we simply don't care. At all.
  • The Rachni wars, or the Krogan Rebellions? The lore tells us how those end, definitively. Again, from a story perspective? None of the choices players would make matter, at all

And so on for any other prequel idea. By hosing down the future, they've hosed down the entire setting. This is why I believe they'll end up retconning it - they'll have no other choice. Now, it looks like the bozo brigade (Hudson) is still convinced that "they did the right thing", so they'll end up retconning things later (maybe much later), at a point when they can look maximally stupid.

Why is this inevitable? With all possible stories in that setting dead, it'll finally occur to someone at EA that they have a serious business (i.e., huge loss of possible future sales) problem on their hands. At that point, the powers that be will treat the ME3 ending the same way that script writers treated Highlander 2 - as an unfortunate incident that they'd like us all to forget (so that we'll buy tickets to the next thing in line). In the meantime, they just get to look stupid.

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posted by James Robertson

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copyright

Germany Thinks YouTube is Omniscient

April 21, 2012 12:16:17.022

Here's how stupid copyright battles have gotten:

"YouTube must take measures to prevent violations in future," said GEMA's lawyer Kerstin Baecker. "The court has clearly rejected the argument that YouTube as a host is not responsible for users' content."

That sounds reasonable until you sit back and consider reality: how can any company possibly install filters that are aware of all copyrighted material - especially given the fact that new material is being created all the time, and the backlog of extant material is so large as to be effectively infinite. It's simply not possible to do what is being asked here.

If this kind of thing holds up, then no site that accepts user generated content - Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, blog servers (etc. etc) can safely operate. Ultimately, this makes it very clear as to what the content industry wants to see happen: they want the net reduced back to a broadcast only thing, akin to TV and radio.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Styled Text Editor for Cuis 4.0 Smalltalk

April 21, 2012 18:54:37.442

Spotted in Planet Squeak

I am very happy to announce that the Styled Text Editor for the brand new Cuis 4.0 is now available on GitHub. The Styled Text Editor was first presented by me at last year’s ESUG in Edinburgh. Thanks to ESUG the presentation was recorded.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Dart at STIC 2012

April 22, 2012 8:48:27.000

The Dart presentation (from Eric Clayberg) at STIC 2012 is now online - you can watch it on the STIC site.

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posted by James Robertson

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Big Poop Keynote at STIC 2012

April 22, 2012 11:50:49.000

The video for Sam Adams keynote on parallelism and OO is now available on the STIC site.

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posted by James Robertson

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podcast

IM 74: Cloud Foundry, Part 1

April 22, 2012 15:25:27.515

Welcome to episode 74 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week we have an interview with James Foster of VMWare. We spoke about Cloud Foundry, and James' work getting Gemstone to be an avilable option there. You can learn more about how to get started with that on James' blog. This is part 1 of 2 - part 2 is coming next week.

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!

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IM 74: Cloud Foundry, Part 1

April 22, 2012 15:25:59.812

Welcome to episode 74 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week we have an interview with James Foster of VMWare. We spoke about Cloud Foundry, and James' work getting Gemstone to be an avilable option there. You can learn more about how to get started with that on James' blog. This is part 1 of 2 - part 2 is coming next week.

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!

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st4u

ST 4U 223: Allocation Profiling in VisualWorks

April 23, 2012 9:58:14.831

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the allocation profiler in VisualWorks (the same tool is available for ObjectStudio). 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:

allocations

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:

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Pharo 2.0 Begins

April 23, 2012 19:03:03.963

Pharo continues to march forward.

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posted by James Robertson

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js4u

JS 4U 151: Event Namespaces

April 24, 2012 8:49:53.039

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at finding the namespace (in JQuery) that an event triggered in - useful for plugin developers. 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:

event namespace

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:

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smalltalk

PDF From Pharo

April 25, 2012 8:21:54.647

Need to produce PDF from Pharo? Then you might want to have a look at Artefact:

My project is in progress and many things are not finalized (no documentation, not enough unit tests, etc.). But, you can produce PDF documents with metadata, multiple page formats in a same document, draw tables, write text and paragraphs, play with colors and grey levels.

To load it, try:


MCHttpRepository
    location: 'http://www.squeaksource.com/artefact'
    user: ''
    password: ''

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 224: Getting Started With OLE Controls in VA Smalltalk

April 25, 2012 10:37:11.856

Today's Smalltalk 4 You starts looking at OLE interfaces in VA Smalltalk, starting with something very simple - a graphics pane on a bitmap. 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:

OLE.

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:


Today we'll start looking at using OLE components in VA Smalltalk - starting off with the simplest example possible: using the graphics control to display a bitmap graphic. First, load the OLE support (VA OLE support) from the features tool:

Features

Next, open up the VA Organizer and create a new application and (visual) part:

New Part

That will take you to the composition editor. On the lower left side of the tools section, you should see a new "OLE" category. Select that, and then pick the first (OLE Client) control from the list:

OLE Parts

Right click on the part, and go to settings. Towards the bottom, you should see "sourcePath". We are going to hit the chooser, and select the BMP file to drop in here.

OLE Client

It should render immediately:

OLE Graphic

Finally, go to the File menu and select "Test". You should see your graphic in a new window:

OLE Graphic

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.

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JS 4U 152: Preventing the Default Event

April 26, 2012 8:16:54.209

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at preventing the default event handling (for a link, for example), and swapping in your own. 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:

preventing event

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:

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Skyrim DLC Inbound?

April 27, 2012 0:06:36.025

it looks like the long wait for Skyrim DLC might be ending (at least for those of us with Xboxes):

After a few weeks of teasing, Bethesda may actually announce the downloadable content for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim soon. Bethesda's PR man Pete Hines said today that more information could be released as early as next week.

Given my work/travel schedule, the new DLC could easily ship while I'm Dallas, leaving me cursing about the exclusive too...

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 225: Embedding a Windows Application in VA Smalltalk

April 27, 2012 10:55:18.709

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at embedding a standard windows app (WordPad in this case) into a VA Smalltalk window. 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:

OLE.

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:


Today we'll use the VA OLE support to embed a Windows application into a VA Smalltalk window. We'll use a standard editor - WordPad. To get started, open the VA Organizer, create a new application and part, and add in an OLE client control (To see those steps, refer to this tutorial.

OLE Client

Double click on the client part, scroll down to "clientName", and select one of the available options from the drop down. THe list will vary based on what you have installed on your system; we'll pick WordPad, which should always be available:

client

Next, we'll change decorationPolicy and focusDecorationPolicy to XmNONE - this will remove any application borders, embedding the tool completely into our window:

display

Finally, go to File>>Test, and see the embedding in action:

OLE Editor

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.

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news

Exhibit A in Why Patents Have Gone Rogue

April 27, 2012 15:04:50.365

It's things like this that make me think we would be better off with no patent or copyright law, compared to what we have now:

A Colorado man says Apple’s smart cover for the new iPad and the iPad 2 violate his 2005 patent for a “Portable Computer Case.”

That doesn't mean that a complete absence of copyrights and patents would be a good thing; it simply means that things are so bad now that a complete free for all would actually be an improvement. What should really be done is a full repeal of copyright and patent law, with a reset to whatever existed after the first set of laws passed at the founding of the Republic....

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posted by James Robertson

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