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All the tools that i searched are 2005 or 2006 and so i dont even dare to try those. I understand that morphic is ok , but i am looking for something like Morphic Designer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmlgU5p4g3o

If you look at this link you will feel all excited and will be tempted to try it out. But unfortunately in todays squeak you cannot even load those mentioned packages. Its a pity. Any help is appreciated.

Thushar G R
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    Hi Uko. I am actively in development using pharo. Regarding web app framework Pharo is the best.Better than VW or any other falvours out there. The issue is with Desktop apps. Pharo is better than squeak in that regard,i admit. But not the best option, if u have to build a simple platform independent desktop gui in 4 to 5 days time. To make this a reality Swing is the only option that i am left with(am ok with infact) in that time frame. I belive this discussion may lead to something fruitful. Thanks for responding. I simply love smalltalk and am frustrated to learn some of its hard truths. – Thushar G R Dec 22 '13 at 17:24
  • Could you describe the symptoms? – aka.nice Dec 22 '13 at 17:31
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    When truth is spoken out loud, down votes are expected. The open source smalltalk community , which includes me too, have bee busy with "cutting edge rocket science technology". But dont even have a decent UiBuilder. Take this as a food for thought rather than downvoting me. To be frank i dont even care. – Thushar G R Dec 22 '13 at 18:51
  • You are right, but… But are you sure that UI builder is the most important thing? Ruby doesn't have UI builder and is popular as HELL. – Uko Dec 23 '13 at 15:14
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    @Uko Its about convenience (AKA lazyness) and not to reinvent the wheel every time u decidedes to implement a GUI. I dont know much about Ruby. What i know is it would have been more attractive to normal programmers like myself, looking to create solutions for the layman. Pharo is damn near to be my favourite tool. It will get there soon , it has everything when ur working with seaside. And like my frnd Marcel Taeumel has mentioned, if he can pull it off it would be great. – Thushar G R Dec 24 '13 at 06:12
  • I agree with you completely, but S.O. is not the right venue for this kind of discussion (or any other kind, really). – Daniel Lyons Dec 26 '13 at 16:50

5 Answers5

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AFAIK the Morphic Designer is currently in a better state than the GsoC project to build a UI designer for spec. It seems to be usable for more complex interfaces, atm. The main issue in making it work with Pharo is probably the use of the signals library. That is somewhat equivalent to Announcements, but it follows QT style. And of course there are differences in which widgets are being used.

The number of actual users seems to be too low. I think HPI should open up their CI for these kinds of projects.

In a discussion on the Pharo Users mailing list some issues and solutions for making Morphic Designer work on Pharo 2.0 and 3.0 are described.

Stephan Eggermont
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  • FYI confirmed that Morphic Designer still works in Squeak 5.3 with the latest instructions. Their Monticello repo had some downtime issues for a bit, but seems better now. – Josh Justice Jun 17 '21 at 21:23
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Have you tried loading the Morphic Designer? If so, how?

https://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hirschfeld/trac/SqueakCommunityProjects/wiki/designer

The Designer should load in Squeak 4.3 and I see no reason that it won't load in 4.4.

If you find issues loading the Designer, pleas let the developer know! I happen to know that Marcel really cares that the designer is usable.

Tobias
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    In current trunk with a COG VM on MacOSX, note that I have to disable the Preferences enableIPv6. – aka.nice Dec 22 '13 at 17:51
  • Also note that I have a warning while loading WidgetSqueakPlatform This package depends on the following classes: UiPlatform You must resolve these dependencies before you will be able to load these definitions: snip... – aka.nice Dec 22 '13 at 17:57
  • @aka.nice Yes UiPlatform it is. Im stuck exactly there. I dont use squeak much. Thats why i had to trouble u guys. Which package should i load the resolve that? – Thushar G R Dec 22 '13 at 18:40
  • @GRThushar but this is not a Squeak problem, the UiPlatform is a class from Hasso Plattner Institut I guess, so it's just that ConfigurationOfDesigner is not up to date w.r.t. package dependency. – aka.nice Dec 22 '13 at 19:05
  • @GRThushar We would be delighted if you give us a bug report or at least a transcript output so that we can investigate, reproduce and fix it :) – Tobias Dec 22 '13 at 19:10
  • @Tobias I just tried to file a bug with them and it failed with an error: Trac detected an internal error: ProgrammingError: relation "spamfilter_log" does not exist LINE 1: INSERT INTO spamfilter_log (time,path,author,authenticated,i... – Harry Jun 18 '14 at 00:42
  • @Harry Thanks for letting me know, I just fixt that. Please go forth and try again. Sorry for the inconvenience. – Tobias Jun 18 '14 at 08:46
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The development version of the Morphic Designer works fine in Squeak 4.4 as I use it frequently for my research:

(Installer mc http: 'http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hirschfeld/squeaksource/')
    project: 'MetacelloRepository';
    install: 'ConfigurationOfDesigner'.
(Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfDesigner) loadDevelopment.
UiDesigner open.

As you may have noticed, this will bootstrap Metacello and also load Signals, Animations and Widgets into your image. I am using the latest build of the CogVM.

I started to port it (Widgets & Designer) to Pharo 2.0. However, Pharo 2.0 is not fully supported yet.

Marcel Taeumel
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  • Good luck to you. Also i remember sometimes back , Pharo had the Designer working in it. I am not sure if it was Pharo or Squeak. cant remember. Anyway, Thanks already for trying. – Thushar G R Dec 24 '13 at 06:14
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Finally i could open the UiDesigner.

Im not sure if i am all0wed to use this in my personal projects. as @aka.nice ponted out this dont belong to the squeak community, rather it belongs to Hasso Plattner Institut. Correct me if i am wrong. Anyway i belive since i was able to get it, i can use it too. So ppl looking for Morphic Designer/ UiDesigner/ GUI in Smalltalk/Squeak can get it this way. WARNING - this is - as of 23/12/2013. This may change without prior notice and that u will have to look for other alternatives to get this.

Also id like to see this in pharo too. I had asked this question to the pahro community some months before. At that time i managed with glamour.

(Installer monticello http:'http://seaside.gemtalksystems.com/ss')
project: 'metacello';
install: 'ConfigurationOfMetacello'. 
((Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfMetacello) project 
  latestVersion) load.



(Installer mc http: 'http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hirschfeld/squeaksource/')
   project: 'MetacelloRepository';
   install: 'ConfigurationOfWidgets'.
(Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfWidgets) load.


(Installer mc http: 'http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hirschfeld/squeaksource/')
   project: 'MetacelloRepository';
   install: 'ConfigurationOfDesigner'.
(Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfDesigner) load.. 

UiDesigner open
Thushar G R
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Spec is an easy-to-use framework for building GUIs. It's not as easy as a GUI builder though. If you want to learn more, there are plenty of examples in Pharo itself a small tutorial at

Damien Cassou
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