ObjectIcon 2.4 and Cygwin make

ObjectIcon 2.4 is available at code.google.com/p/objecticon

This is the Icon language of the late Ralph Griswold and others as extended by Robert Parlett with class-based objects and Unicode.

If you are a Windows user with Cygwin as your gcc build environment, you will have to recall how to apply env var changes to the current shell: ObjectIcon comes with a handy paths.sh file which will only be of use if run as

.  ./paths.sh

where the initial dot ensures that a script not using exit will have its variables export into the scope of the current shell in which it will run.  Just running the script will not set the var's for ObjectIcon to use.

This way you are able to pick up the ObjectIcon env vars such as OIHOME without adding them into a bash rc file or the like.

On my system that paths.sh file is

# Object Icon path settings

export OIHOME="/cygdrive/i/objecticon-2.4"
export OIBIN="$OIHOME/bin"
export OILIB="$OIHOME/lib"
export OIPATH="$OILIB/main:$OILIB/gui:$OILIB/xml:$OILIB/parser:$OILIB/ipl"
export OIINCL="$OILIB/incl"
PATH="$PATH:$OIBIN"
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$OILIB/native"
export TRACE OIMAXLEVEL

Squeak MonticelloConfigurations mcm for Seaside 2.9

If you are like me and have not used an Monticello configuration file such as the mcm file to install Seaside 2.9 in Squeak, what you need to do is download the mcm file and place it in the package-cache directory of the Squeak you are going to run.

I tried using Monticello to create a package and then edit the script but PackageInfo is broken even in the LevelPlayingField (LPF) image that I built by running
HTTPSocket httpFileIn: 'ftp.squeak.org/3.11/scripts/LPF.st'
in a workspace.

Once the file is where a monticello tool can see it, even the Monticello Browser can be used to load it by doing Open on the package-cache which should appear at top of the panel on the right of the browser.

Documenting a Curl Surge Lab Interface class

Surge Lab had been marketed as the name for the Curl IDE. The IDE has a feature that you may recognize if you use eclipse or Aptana: you can flip from one perspective to another. But the IDE gives only a glimpse of Curl interaction for the developer because, like Smalltalk Seaside 'halos' on a web page, Curl offers a Ctrl-Right-Click which opens text and graphic inspectors on objects embedded in a 'live' web page.

The ctrl-right-click pop-up menu includes viewing and editing the Curl source, inspecting objects and both 'Start Profiling' and 'Start HTTP Monitoring'. (Curl also offers test-coverage tools for HP's Mercury QTP.)

The inspectors are toolbar driven and almost feel like a Smalltalk object inspector becuase one toolbar item is 'Evaluate' which is just like the JavaScript popup in FireFox developer tools. Unfortunately, the inspectors lack some features of a typical Smalltalk inspector. The first that I would add to be Curl-ish would be a 'select-text-F1' event-handler to get the fine Curl doc viewer to popup.

What I will do this morning is include a Curl snippet of what you might browse in such a popup; it demonstatrates how the doc viewer is driven.

The following snippet is copied from

I:\Curl RTE\Surge\6\ide\editor-interface
EditorInterface.scurl

Snippet:

{doc-next
{purpose
This class defines the interface that an editor must support
to be integrated with Surge Lab.
}
{details
An external editor needs to implement this class, and define
a top-level variable named {monospace surge-lab-editor} which
is an instance of its implementation of this class.
}
}
{define-class public open abstract EditorInterface

{doc-next
{purpose
Initialize the editor.  An interface back to Surge
Lab is provided for the editor.
}
}
{method public open abstract {initialize
surge-lab-interface:SurgeLabInterface
}:void
}

The behavior of the default Curl editor is not my favorite side of Curl at the moment: high-lighting a '{' offers a context popup to view the '{' in a class browser instead of the handy behavior when you add a '}' which is to blink the matching '{' in red.
Adding a '}' and then placing a CR in front has the disconcerting behavior of aligning the '}' with the matching '{'. This is annoying if it is your habit to end a line using a 'do' with an opening brace ( as required by many script interpreters such as Tcl and which is {script-style} for many programmers.)

But the little annoyances in the default editor come to nothing because there is an interface for external editors.

Over at eclectic-pencil I will add a page with a working HTML example of an embedded Curl {example} macro using a TreeControl object. Install the plugin and Ctrl-Right-Click. Cool.

Rebol

My Rebol notes are going to be at what is somewhat marred at the moment by rant about what the trial version of Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 did to my licensed instal of OneNote 2003 ...
Only this morning I enter my office to edit this post to find my computer stone-cold dead. When Microsoft Windows XP comes back to life, a little message tells me that a security update required a restart.
I do not have the time or energy for a rant this morning: on to Curl, curlr and rCurl

But I am back. About 30 minutes later. And with no Blog POST for LcurlR.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, IE7, perhaps just to remind me of last night's fiasco, simply froze. I knew that blog post was history. I had not hit Save-As-Draft. Daft. I do not have time or energy for a rant.

So why was I not in Firefox ? Firefox will recover. It will reopen my 12 or more sessions with their multiple tabs. My machine will start to crawl (some have the Adobe plugin running.) Said I, you just want to post a blog on LcurlR. Firefox can wait. Wrong.