neil@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Neil Haddley) (10/15/87)
WARNING :- This is one of those "Please help this poor guy out" letters. At Lancaster University England we have started seriously using Smalltalk. The problem we've hit is the lack of documentation which describes how to create powerful user interfaces to our requirements. The best source we've found so far to what we need is Chapter 15 in "Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment". It was a bit of a shock to say the least to find that the forthcom- ing book "Smalltalk-80: Creating a User Interface and Graphical Applications" does not exist. What we want to know is how to create good user interfaces to our applications. So if someone could send some (well documented) ex- amples that would be appreciated. Many Thanks in advance Neil
ken@pdn.UUCP (Ken Auer) (10/26/87)
In article <433@dcl-csvax.comp.lancs.ac.uk>, neil@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Neil Haddley) writes: > At Lancaster University England we have started seriously using > Smalltalk. The problem we've hit is the lack of documentation > which describes how to create powerful user interfaces to our > requirements. > > The best source we've found so far to what we need is Chapter 15 > in "Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment". It > was a bit of a shock to say the least to find that the forthcom- > ing book "Smalltalk-80: Creating a User Interface and Graphical > Applications" does not exist. > > What we want to know is how to create good user interfaces to our > applications. So if someone could send some (well documented) ex- > amples that would be appreciated. Let me precede the following with the statement that I'm posting this instead of mailing it to try to get more people talking about MVC, and trying to answer some questions which most new Smalltalkers have. After having worked in Smalltalk for a couple of years now, I find that after a newcomer to Smalltalk plays around for a couple of weeks, they want to produce an application and almost ALWAYS come running to me or somebody else with tons of questions about MVC and how they can find out more about it. In general unless you know where to look, it's not that easy (for a new Smalltalker) to follow even the examples that are already in the image. Although there's no real document (or book) on "Creating a User Interface and Graphical Applications", there is some documentation on "where to look", and "how to approach" it. Steve Burbeck of Softsmarts has written a document on MVC ("Model-View-Controller") that is fairly concise, and very good for people that haven't worked with it much. If I'm not mistaken, Softsmarts will sell the paper (which is 15-20 pages) for something in the $5-10 range for non-customers... I'm not exactly sure of their policy about it... hopefully I don't make any enemies by posting this. I've also heard rumor at OOPSLA '88 that ParcPlace was going to release a fairly sizable paper about MVC sometime in the near future, but I really know nothing about it... perhaps they'll respond... perhaps its only rumor. Other than those two, let me put in a plug for OOPSTAD (Object Oriented Programming for Smalltalk Applications Developers Association) and their newsletter HOOPLA (Hurray for Object Oriented Programming Languages). In the first issue, Sam Adams wrote a very interesting article about using dependencies and pluggable views. If I'm not mistaken, OOPSTAD was formed with the very idea in mind of trying to help in areas such as this which are not well documented and of interest to all. I'm 100% sure that they'd love to include any kind of articles on MVC which any of us (Smalltalkers) would like to submit... If you don't know about OOPSTAD, you can become a member for $25 ($35 outside US) for an individual, $250 Corporate/Institutional... OOPSTAD P.O. Box 1565 Everett, WA 98206-1565 (By the way, the only association I have with OOPSTAD is membership). Sorry to say that there is not more documentation on it, and like most of Smalltalk, the best way to learn is to check out what's already there, and to try stuff on your own. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Auer Paradyne Corporation {gatech,codas,ucf-cs}!usfvax2!pdn!ken Mail stop LF-207 Phone: (813) 530-8307 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL 34649-9981 "The views expressed above do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, which by no means makes them incorrect." P.S. I'm to the point where I can put together quick and dirty MVCs in a day or so, and I've gotten there by trial and error. My wife and I would be happy to sacrifice some of our vacation time and visit England, for a small (or large) stipend (all other expenses paid, of course) 8^)
jeff@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Stearns) (11/03/87)
In article <1649@pdn.UUCP> ken@pdn.UUCP (Ken Auer) writes: > Other than those two, let me put in a plug for OOPSTAD (Object Oriented > Programming for Smalltalk Applications Developers Association) and their > newsletter HOOPLA (Hurray for Object Oriented Programming Languages). > In the first issue, Sam Adams wrote a very interesting article about > using dependencies and pluggable views. > > If I'm not mistaken, OOPSTAD was formed with the very idea in mind of > trying to help in areas such as this which are not well documented and > of interest to all. I'm 100% sure that they'd love to include any kind > of articles on MVC which any of us (Smalltalkers) would like to > submit... If you don't know about OOPSTAD, you can become a member for > $25 ($35 outside US) for an individual, $250 Corporate/Institutional... > > OOPSTAD > P.O. Box 1565 > Everett, WA 98206-1565 Some further information for those of you who want to contact OOPSTAD: They have both a telephone and a UUCP connection. OOPSTAD: (206) 252-6897 I imagine that you can send email to them at: {sun,uw-beaver,microsoft}!fluke!oophost!postmaster -or- postmaster%oophost@fluke.COM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -- Jeff Stearns 206-356-5064 new: jeff@tc.fluke.COM John Fluke Mfg. Co. old: uw-beaver!fluke!jeff P.O. Box C9090 Everett WA 98206 or: allegra!fluke!jeff