Most of [the many GUI-builders in Squeak] are incomplete, out-of-date, and abandoned; but they show that developers are repeatedly coming back to a need to find an easy way to create and manage a user interface that employs the metaphors that have become familiar to most desktop users. Not a "Windows clone", but perhaps something like Tk or Swing Metal -- familiar enough, but not tied to the platform -- and not requiring extra installation above and beyond the Squeak VM & image.
After looking at the options (and trying unsuccessfully to make prefab usable for me), I gave up! I'm now using Seaside to build the UI for my applications. This isn't a perfect answer, in fact using a complex mix of HTML CSS and JS to replicate a rich client interface is pretty
mad, but it quickly gives me a user interface that is familiar and can be layed out quickly and easily.
If I had access within Squeak to a full set of UI widgets that had a consistent look and feel, were more 'mainstream', and preferably came with builder tools (perhaps Magritte with layout hinting), I'd love to have the power of Morphic under the covers, but as it is, Seaside is
the best game in town.
Well, it looks as though half of my dream has come true! Noury Bouraqadi has published details of his Easy Morphic GUI, which allows you to build up the GUI for a Morphic application, and some of the event handling, using a drag and drop interface. It requires your parent morph to be a subclass of his EMGGuiMorph, but will accept any morphs from the Parts Bin.
This may well inspire me to try to build a few UI elements with a more conventional look and feel.
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