0

How to identify which smalltalk IDE/implementation is used by seeing an desktop application developed in smalltalk?

SBS
  • 1
  • 1
    Why do you want to know? Do you have a picture we could look at? – Max Leske Mar 24 '14 at 13:37
  • By the look & feel. But you cannot tell in some cases like Smalltalk MT and Dolphin. – Juan Aguerre Mar 25 '14 at 04:08
  • Actually I need to study small-talk and I'm in deli-ma as to choose which small-talk implementation for that and all that I've is an access to a remote application which is written in small-talk but don't know using which small-talk IDE they have developed the application. So is there any way that I can know the IDE by seeing the small-talk application. Thanks in advance – SBS Mar 25 '14 at 06:26
  • You should submit a screenshot and maybe we can help. Some Smalltalks (without hyphen ;)) can invoke native windows, so in these cases it'd be impossible to tell by just looking at the GUI. – Bernat Romagosa Mar 25 '14 at 08:32
  • Please find the below link to access the screen shot of the application- http://i.stack.imgur.com/Zfh6P.png – SBS Mar 25 '14 at 10:37
  • A little information on where you got the screenshot from as well. Did you snap it yourself from a running app? Or pull it from some docs? Both the look and feel and the icons look pretty dated. Which operating system it was running on, if you knew would narrow it as well. For example, I don't think that's Windows, which rules out MT and Dolphin. – Travis Griggs Mar 26 '14 at 01:08
  • Thank you @Travis Griggs but I don't have any details of that application. The only thing that I know abt that is-it is cross platform application. – SBS Mar 26 '14 at 04:51

2 Answers2

1

The icons and the lines in the shown widget strongly point towards VisualAge Smalltalk from IBM, which nowadays is VA Smalltalk from Instantiations. The program obviously was generated with a replacement window icon, so that you cannot tell from the window, but the container icon tree displayed here makes me almost 100% sure it is VisualAge.

Do you happen to have access to the runtime directory on that Windows computer? If so, is there a program called abt.exe or nodialog.exe? Or even better: is there one or more of these subdirectories in the runtime directory: \bin \nls \bmp? If so: it is VA.

Joachim Tuchel
  • 447
  • 2
  • 10
0

A picture of the start-up splash screen would help confirm or eliminate some dialects, as would an indication of what OS's it runs on, or the year it was first deployed (is there a copyright statement on the splash screen?). These icons remind me of OS2 or Windows 95 (or Windows 3.1), which would indicate a very early Visual Works or perhaps VSE. Any insight into the source storage mechanism would help too - a .dat file indicates an Envy based system, which would be either early VisualWorks, or VisualAge. Another possible indicator is the icon in the upper left of the window - but the "blue sky/green mountain" in your picture is not one I recognize. VisualAge first had the "eyeball", then later the "Smalltalk balloon" that hearkens back to the 1980 Byte magazine cover. For pictures of some of the older IDEs, look through the older out of print Smalltalk training books at http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks.html

SteveCline
  • 1
  • 2
  • Thankyou @SteveCline and about the icon in the upper left of the window, I think so they have set it. – SBS Apr 07 '14 at 09:29