The Smalltalk and C code in this directory provides a graphical and Metaclass foundation for a complete X-based browser system for GNU Smalltalk. The system will allow the programmer to view the source code for existing classes, to modify existing classes and methods, to get detailed information about the classes and methods, and to evaluate code within the browser. In addition, some simple debugging tools were provided. An Inspector window was provided which will allow the programmer to graphically inspect and modify the representation of an object. Based on Steve Byrne's BBrowser, a walkback inspector was designed which will display a backtrace when the program encounters an error. This browser evolved from a Motif-based version developed over a year and a half ago. The release of the browser was delayed because of legal concerns about possible copyright infringement because my initial implementation used parts of ParcPlace's Model-View-Controller (MVC) message interface. I worked with Richard Stallman these these past couple of months and purged all the MVC elements from my implementation. Based on his ideas, I devised a new window update scheme which is more flexible and powerful than MVC's dependency mechanism. I wish to offer my great appreciation and thanks to Steve Byrne, Peter Deutsch, Eben Moglen and Richard Stallman for their supernumerary efforts in finally making the release of my browser a reality. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Software requirements: X11R4 or greater development and user environment. 1) Run make. 2) Build the Smalltalk image: gst -Viq Blox.st t2.st tb2.st 3) If all goes well, a small window with a button named, smalltalk, will appear in the top-left hand corner of the screen. 4) Thereafter, you can run the browser by entering: gst -Vq tb2.st To close a window, select 'close' in the popup menu activated from the text region of the window. Currently, no general support for handling close messages sent from FVWM or MWM is provided. Consequently, if you attempt to close a window from the window menu, you will kill the application. If you have any comments about the system and/or the code, please let me know. Brad Diller bdiller@apl.com
GNU Smalltalk Simple Browser
NOTES
The simple browser is a quickie implementation of a Smalltalk class browser
that I created to test out and demonstrate the capabilities of BLOX. Please
not that this is *not* the "real" Smalltalk class browser; we are still
removing any potential similarities between it and ParcPlace's so they don't
sue us (no joke :-( ). It's meant to be useful, fun, and kind of a taste of
things to come. It is not complete by any stretch of the imagination, so
please don't be too concerned if your favorite browser feature is missing from
this simple browser.
SETTING UP
To set up the simple browser, first do:
gst -Viq Blox.st BBrowser.st
Then, and each time you want to start the browser, do:
gst -Vq r.st
This will bring up the Xt based simple class browser. The right mouse button
(with standard mouse button assignments normally) brings up a menu for the
selected list item.
Have fun!
Steve
BLOX is a GUI building block tool kit. It is an abstraction on top of the a platform's native GUI toolkit that is common across all platforms. Writing to the BLOX interface means your GUI based application will be portable to any platform where BLOX is supported.
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.