Smalltalk/Squeak Basics - Menus

Our first two pages in this had to deal with Squeak language basics and system browser basics. This one concerns menu basics - not only what the different options are, but how to get different menus to pop up.

Due to the number of images, I split this up into a couple of pages. These are the browser menus page and the file list menus page.

The main menu is brought up by clicking anywhere in the system window and looks like this:

• Keep Menu Up - Obvious. Make menu static.

• Previous Project - You can do work in "projects" in Squeak, which are a way of managing your code. They are essentially different windows that you can do work in. Clicking this takes you back to the previous project you were in.
• Jump To Project - Takes you to a particular project window.
• Restore Display - A useful option. Sometimes your Squeak window will be cluttered or have graphics errors (windows re-drawn incorrectly, etc.). This forces Squeak to re-draw the entire display and fixes these.

  This next group opens up other menus:

• Open - Opens the menu which is shown and explained below. Allows you to open various system windows (transcript, system browser, etc.) and open new projects.
• Windows - Allows you to make changes to window colors and how they are displayed.
• Changes - Allows you to manage changes. This is similar to other source code management systems. Also useful. A set of code in squeak is called a "change set".
• Help - Gives you access to various help functions. Also allows you to reach the preferences.
• Appearance - Obvious. Lets you change how things appear in Squeak.
• Do - A set of basic commands already typed in. Just select them to do. Try these out sometime.

• Save - Let's you save the image. Will include all code done since you opened this image file.
• Save as - Similar to save, but lets you specify the name of the image file to save.
• Save and Quit - Same as "Save" above, but also quits automatically.
• Quit - Exits Squeak. Will ask if you want to save the image first.

The open menu is brough up by choosing 'open' from the main menu above.

• Browser - Opens a system browser. Lets you inspect/edit code.
• Workspace - Squeak's "input" window.
• File List - Opens Squeak's link to system files.
• File - Allows you to select a file directly. File must be in same directory as Squeak image file.
• Transcript - Squeak's "output" window.
• Selector Finder - Way to search for something (method, etc.) in system. Very useful. (Hint: You can do something similar by typing a word or few letters, selecting it, and typing command-shift-w on Mac or alt-shift-w on PC)

• Simple Change Sorter - Opens a window which allows you to manage change sets.
• Dual Change Sorter - Same as above, but allows you to transfer code between change sets.

• Project (MVC) - Allows you to create an MVC project.
• project (Morphic) - Allows you to create a morphic project. If you use projects, this is the one you'd probably do.
• Project (Construction) - Allows you to create a project for construction.