[Cuis-dev] Theme customization ... browser buttons

[Gerald Klix]

Please see below.

On 3/18/23 1:55 AM, Alexandre Rousseau wrote:
> I need to pick someone's brains.
>
> I'm trying to find the code (for purposes of theming) used to build
> this row of browser buttons (see attached).
>
> I doubt that clicking on every selector and reading its code in the hope of
> landing on the answer -- as I have done -- is the most efficient way.
It normally is, but not in this case.
> If you wanted to find the code that built this row of buttons, what tool(s)
> or actions would you take?
I don't remember what I did to find that code, AFAIR I opened
about 100 hundred method browsers with senders and implementors,
at least it felt that way.

I started with BrowserWindow>>#buildMorphicWidget and
looked at the implementation of the various #buildSuchAndSuch
message sends. After some search I came across #buildLowerPanes,
which contains a message send of #optionalButtonRow. This method
in turn creates all the PluggableButtonMorph instances from the
result of #optionalButtonTuples. The later being the method to look at.
That's the generic and tedious Smalltalk approach.

A slightly faster approach is to browse PluggableButtonMorph.
The ClassList-menu provides an option named "class refs (N)",
that opens a method browser on all the references of
PluggableButtonMorph. In this window you may find
CodeWindow>>#optionalButtonRow, provided you are aware that
BrowserWindow is a subclass of CodeWindow. This approach should
also work with every Smalltalk.

The fastest approach is to make use Morphic's introspection
capabilities. Shift-Middle-Click on one of the buttons, say
"Implementors", in the morphic halo, press the explore button, right
below the halo's close button. An explorer will open. In this
explorer you will find the buttons instance variable named
actionSelector. It is bound to #browseMessages.
Now comes the critical part: Find the implementation of
#browseMessages. You use "WorldMenu -> Open -> Message Names" to
search for it. This will open a method browser with one result:
CodeWindow>>#browseMessages. You use that browser window to
find the senders of #browseMessages. This will yield three
senders of which one is CodeWindow>>#optionalButtonRow.

Tip: As you can see by looking at the code of CodeWindow>>#optionalButtonRow
"Senders" and "Implementors" have a so called secondary selector,
which is invoked when you press a button morph with the right mouse button.
In the case of "Senders" it directly opens a method browser for the
senders of the method you browse, without opening a menu of
all message sends. You can also right click on the "Browse" and
"Inheritance", which opens a full browser or inheritance browser
like the left click on that button, but it also closes the existing
browser window after placing the new window at the same
location the old window occupied. In a nutshell: You can
virtually convert a Browser to an Inheritance Browser
or a Method Browser to a (Full) Browser with one mouse click.

I suppose this is not documented in the the Cuis book,
because the lazy author of these short cuts, namely me,
did not do it, sorry.


HTH,

Gerald

>
> [image: Screenshot 2023-03-17 at 8.49.11 PM.png]
>
> On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 12:52 PM Alexandre Rousseau <yalexr at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks !
>>
>> I'm rather new at this but I will try. News apace.
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 12:48 PM Gerald Klix <cuis.01 at klix.ch> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Alexandre,
>>>
>>> Subclassing BrowserWindow and PluggableButtonMorph is one possible
>>> solution.
>>>
>>> The other solution is to provide a proper change set for the base image,
>>> containing the added preference and the changed PluggableButtonMorph
>>> code. I presume that this is a rather simple change, meaning it does not
>>> create a big review effort for Juan, therefore he might accept such a
>>> change.
>>> I am strongly in favor of such a solution, because I want a better
>>> contrast
>>> of the buttons wrt. to the window background.
>>>
>>> While you are at it, you may also try to unify the code that calculates
>>> the color of the browser's inheritance button and the code that calculates
>>> the color of this very button's balloon help. The balloon help code
>>> is a rather bad hack (of mine).
>>>
>>>
>>> HTH and Best Regards,
>>>
>>> Gerald
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/17/23 2:23 PM, Alexandre Rousseau via Cuis-dev wrote:
>>>> Hi.
>>>>
>>>> I'm subclassing ClassicTheme to define my own theme, drawing examples
>>> from
>>>> ClassicTheme and its parent class (Theme).
>>>>
>>>> I now want to customize the colors of Browser buttons (instances of
>>>> PluggableButtonMorph), i.e., I do not want their background color to be
>>>> taken from the defaultWindowColor theme variable, but rather from a new
>>>> one, say, defaultButtonBackgroundColor.
>>>>
>>>> Does this imply that I have to subclass Browser and
>>> PluggableButtonMorph,
>>>> or is there a more expedient solution?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> [image: Screenshot 2023-03-17 at 9.16.26 AM.png]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>