[Cuis] What is Morphic?

[Casey Ransberger]

3D is usually arrived upon by way of FFI and OpenGL. To see some 3D stuff in Smalltalk, check out OpenCobalt (basically no setup) or OpenQwaq (very powerful, but requires a specially configured Linux server. Setup is complex.). These systems are both derived from the Croquet project (which was implemented in Squeak.)

The user interface in Cuis, Squeak, and Pharo are all based on Morphic (though the Cuis implementation is very different.) When you open a browser window in Cuis, for example, it's made out of morphs. Once you've figured out what key to hold while clicking to get the halo, you can keep clicking to drill down to the individual Morphs and inspect them by clicking the little wrench icon. This is one of the best ways to get a sense of how the system works. Try it with a menu some time!

Morphic is for 2D graphics. It was originally implemented (IIRC by John Maloney of Scratch fame) for the Self language's UI. 

Here's the original Self paper if you're curious. Mind you, our Morphic has changed quite a bit since Self, and since this paper describes a language which is inspired by, but not at all the same as, Smalltalk: don't expect the examples to work:)

http://ftp.squeak.org/docs/Self-4.0-UI-Framework.pdf

> On Dec 23, 2013, at 10:05 PM, Kirk Fraser <overcomer.man at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I did a simple 2D application in Cuis 1.2 - it doesn't use many Morphic methods.  Can Morphic do 3D, importing video to manipulate and analyze?  Is Morphic the best hope for such a playground?  Or would I get done quicker another way?  Thanks.  And Merry Christmas.
> 
> Kirk W. Fraser
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