The Weekly Squeak

Category: Releases

  • Sophie multimedia authoring environment hits 1.0

    Maus multimedia in Sophie

    Great news from the Sophie team – they’ve now released Sophie 1.0, available now from the Sophie website.

    Sophie is software for writing and reading rich media documents in a networked environment. The team’s goal is to open up the world of multimedia authoring to a wide range of people and institutions and in so doing to redefine the notion of a book or “academic paper” to include both rich media and mechanisms for reader feedback and conversation in dynamic margins.

    The team has produced lots of tutorial and documentation information, including some screencasts showing how easy multimedia authoring can be. Download Sophie to find out for yourself!

    Sophie is based on Squeak, and so runs on Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems.

  • Squeak 3.10 now released!

    Squeak 3.10

    Squeak version 3.10 has just been released onto the ftp server. This marks the completion of the development effort and gives Squeak developers an opportunity to check compatibility of packages and ports; work is still under way to produce final and fully packaged release files and once this has been completed, the squeak.org images on the Download page will be updated to point to fully packaged versions of this new release. Normal Squeak users are advised to wait for the packaged versions to be made available before upgrading.

    The goal of the 3.10 release was to improve the process of making Squeak releases and to improve the quality of the code. The release team concentrated on improving the coverage of unit tests, in making Squeak more modular, and in getting rid of non-core and unsupported code. In addition, many bugs were fixed.

    Highlights were:
    – Removal of non-core code.
    – Consistent use of Monticello to manage package dependencies.
    – Use of Package Universes for managing package compatibility issues.
    – Bug policy requiring all fixes to include unit tests.
    – Image fully tested on Mac OS X Tiger, Windows XP and Simply MEPIS 6.5 Linux.

    Thanks to the 3.10 release team including Ralph Johnson, Edgar De Cleene, and the many other Squeakers who contributed ideas, bug-fixes and support. Their work has given us an excellent release, and one which will be a great starting point for eventual progress to 4.0.

    Discussions and planning for 3.11 is already beginning on the mailing list, including topics such as:
    – the removal of major packages such as eToys and Nebraska to become loadable via Package Universes, and use of MinimalMorphic instead of the full Morphic suite.
    – migration to the improved packaging and loading functionality of tools currently under development such as DeltaStreams or Monticello2.
    – all code under old licences has been identified, and its replacement will be a priority.
    If you have an interest in how Squeak develops in the future, now is the time to have your say!

    For more information about this release, see the 3.10 page on the swiki or the welcome notes in the image itself.

    [Edited to clarify status of this release]

  • Seaside 2.8 Released!!

    Seaside 2.8 nb

    After a beta phase of two months we release the final version of Seaside 2.8. Most bugs fixed during this period were either long standing (already in 2.7), minor or portability related, Together with the dozens of Seaside 2.8 applications already in production today this gives a pretty good feeling about this version. A special mention goes to Roger Whitney, thanks to him we went from 99 commented classes to 144.

    This release brings major performance and memory improvements:

    • The rendering speed of an average page is up to twice as fast as with previous versions, because of the new character encoding architecture.
    • An average application requires up to four times less memory than with previous versions. The reason for this is the optimized object backtracking and the reduction of stored continuations.

    We have a list of new features [1] and a migration guide [2] on our homepage.

    Squeak users can get it either from SqueakMap, Universes or directly via Monticello (Seaside2.8a1-lr.518). A special note for Squeak users, do not load Seaside 2.8 into an image that has already Seaside 2.7 in it. If you use Squeak 3.7 you will have to load SeasideSqueak37 as well.

    VisualWorks users can get it form Store (2.8a1-lr.518,tkogan).

    GemStone/S users can load Seaside2.8g1-dkh.522.

    [1] http://www.seaside.st/community/development/seaside28
    [2] http://www.seaside.st/documentation/migration

    Cheers
    The Seaside Team

  • Tangible User Interface for Squeak

    Reactable in action

    Simon Holland yesterday announced on the squeak-dev list the release of a Squeak client for TUIO under the MIT licence. TUIO allows the rapid development of table-based tangible user interfaces (TUI) and multi-touch interactive surfaces.

    TUIO uses the reacTIVision computer vision system to track physical objects in real time. This system is also used in reactable – the electronic music interface used by Björk in her current world tour.

    The Squeak package includes the Tuio client and demonstration application program. To make practical use of Tuio for Squeak you will need a webcam or other camera, and should download the free Reactivision application for your operating system.

    (Image shows reactable in action from http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable )

  • New Squeak UI Enhancements Released

    https://i0.wp.com/farm2.static.flickr.com/1120/1213406097_08eab7697e.jpg

    Gary Chambers released new UI Enhancements for Squeak. You can now access these changes from the Squeak Source Repository or through Package Universes. You can read more by following the following threads here and here. Also check out the new UI team. Our thanks to Gary and the UI Team!!

  • Dynamic Language Symposium

    Dynamic Languages 2

    Call For Papers!

    Are you ready to OOPSLA!!

    The Dynamic Language Symposium is looking for participants.

    D L S 2 0 0 7

    Dynamic Languages Symposium

    October 22, 2007
    Palais des congres de Montreal
    Montreal, Canada

    co-located with OOPSLA 2007
    sponsored by ACM SIGPLAN

    http://www.swa.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/dls07/

    The Dynamic Languages Symposium (DLS) is a forum for discussion of dynamic languages, their implementation and application. While mature dynamic languages including Smalltalk, Lisp, Scheme, Self, and Prolog continue to grow and inspire new converts, a new generation of dynamic scripting languages such as Python, Ruby, PHP, and JavaScript are successful in a wide range of applications. DLS provides a place for researchers and practitioners to come together and share their knowledge, experience, and ideas for future research and development.

    This year 30 papers were submitted to the Dynamic Languages Symposium of which 9 papers were accepted. The program committee reviewed each paper and met electronically to select papers for the final program.

    We are pleased host invited talks by Mark Miller and Jim Hugunin.

    The program of the Dynamic Languages Symposium is available from http://www.swa.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/dls07/

    Please note that participation in DLS requires registration with OOPSLA at http://www.regmaster.com/conf/oopsla2007.html or http://www.oopsla.org/oopsla2007/

    Contact:
    Pascal Costanza (pascal.costanza @ vub.ac.be)

    Robert Hirschfeld (hirschfeld @ hpi.uni-potsdam.de)

  • More eye-candy coming soon to your Squeak desktop

    Squeak desktop eye-candy

    Gary Chambers recently announced the imminent release of an add-on package for Morphic that brings more eye-candy to your Squeak desktop.

    This package offers TrueType font support (via the FreeType Plus package), desktop theming and a whole collection of standard widgets.

    While waiting with impatience for the release of the package, you can look at the screenshots here and here.

  • New Seaside website

    Phlippe Marshall wrote to the Seaside mailing list:

    After too many delays the new Seaside homepage has finally gone online. Since we switched hosts it might take a moment until the DNS update propagates to you. The first thing you’ll notice is the updated look for which we no longer have to excuse. We cleaned up the content and added a lot of new stuff. Among others you’ll find interactive examples, feed aggregation Monticello commit logs and the answers to often asked questions like ‘What is the best Swiss cheese?’. Under the hood we made a lot of technology upgrades. We finally run on Seaside (2.8) and the Pier CMS with several plug-ins, we are also hosted at Seaside-Hosting. The only way to eat more dog food would be running on SqueakNOS.

    The page is not yet fully finished (and probably never will be) but we feel we’re at the point where it’s significantly better than the old one. So if you have suggestions for improvements or want to help get in contact with us.

  • Recent Squeak packages releases

    Many Squeak packages have been released in the past months. Here’s a quick list:

    • Torsten Bergmann has packaged Joseph Perline’s Toothpick logging framework as a Monticello package and made it available on both Squeak Map and Squeaksource.
    • Elod Kironsky has released SmallDEVS, a Squeak-based, lightweight implementation of the DEVS (Discrete event systems specification) formalism.
    • Damien Cassou is continuing working on his Squeak-dev and Squeak-web images.
    • Pavel Krivanek announced the final 3.9 release of his KernelImage minimal image.
    • Lex Spoon has released the stable package universe for Squeak 3.9.
    • Bryce Kampjes released version 0.10 of Exupery.
    • Goran Krampe released version 0.3 of the Gjallar issue tracker.
    • Brian Rice provided new looks and functionalities to the SqueakMap Package Loader.
    • Keith Hodges is continuing his work on Installer, with new features every release.
    • Chris Muller has released a new stable version of the Magma OODB, available on Squeak Map.
    • A new version of the Chronos library by Alan Lovejoy has been published on Squeaksource.
    • Stéphane Rollandin has published a new development snapshot of muO, an experimental environment for music composition.
    • Masashi Umezawa has announced version 0.2 of the SIXX XML object serializer.
    • David T. Lewis has published SlangBrowser, an interactive Slang code browser.

  • Recent VM Releases

    John M. McIntosh and Andreas Raab have recently release new versions of the Mac Carbon and Windows VM.

    John has bumped the Carbon VM version to 3.8.15b1. Previous releases of this VM have also provided a MacIntel browser plugin in lieu of the old PowerPC-only plugin and many other fixes, thanks to funding by Viewpoints Research, Inc. This latest release includes fixes for bugs discovered by the Scratch support team.

    Andreas has released a new VM based on the latest VMMaker (3.9). This are experimental releases, and Andreas is inviting ther Win32 users to test it and report any problems. There aren’t any new features, but this new releases use the new build system that has been put in place between Squeak versions 3.7 and 3.9.