[self-interest] Re: Position

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

On Wednesday 19 November 2003 07:24, helenameyer2000 wrote:
> We get the same position and the same height when we execute the
> above two lines in different objects....
> How do we grab a specific object and ask for its height?

Just point to the object, click on the right mouse button (blue menu) 
and ask for "outliner for morph". Use the "E" button on the outliner to 
get the evaluator. In the evaluator, just type

    position

and then the "get" button. Next type

    baseBounds height

My example was meant to be used in some code rather than directly in the 
evaluator, where "self" is the object on which you opened the outliner. 
I wouldn't expect to get always the same answer doing it this way.

> But what are topmostOwner and anyWindowCanvas?

Every morph has a 'owner', which is the morph into which it is embedded. 
This forms a chain until you get to an object that has nil as its 
owner. That should be a worldMorph. Just asking for 'topmostOwner' 
gives us directly the last element in the chain.

Why do we want that? That is the only object that knows anything about 
windows. But as I mentioned, that object may be in any number of 
windows. Asking for 'anyWindowCanvas' will return the drawing surface 
(so we can test borders) from one of them. As long as there is only 
one, that will be the right answer. If there is more than one window we 
should be smarter about choosing which one we are interested in.

> We think that this should be implemented in pluggableOutliner
> prototype.

Sure.

> > Scrollbars in general aren't very popular in Self. What would these
> > do?
>
> If an object is too big and outside the screen, it can be difficult
> to move around to see what's inside the object.

I would prefer some convenient method for scrolling the whole world 
instead of something like this. For one presentation I did using Self, 
I modified the world morph to scroll when I typed the arrow keys. It is 
amazing how much more usable the whole user interface became! For 
example, it is hard to "carry" and object very far when you have to 
drop it to click on the radarView buttons all the time. The only 
problem is when some other morph has the typing focus.

-- Jecel