To: frode@m2cs.uu.no, anders@m2cs.uu.no
In-reply-to: Frode Odegard's message of Mon, 6 Mar 89 14:44:15 +0100 <8903061344.AA21254@m2cs.uu.no>
Subject: NeWS toolkits
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What we're all waiting for is NDE -- NeWS Development Environment. It
looks like OPEN LOOK, but it's a tool kit kit, i.e. OPEN LOOK is only
an example of what you can do with it. You're not stuck with it! 

They've done some wonderful extensions to the class system, magic
dictionaries, and the way in which objects fit into the window hierarchy.
Now there's multiple inheritance. And the class hierarchy has been
restructured so menus, windows, items, etc, are all based on class Canvas,
and use the actual canvas as an instance dictionary...  The "magic
dictionaries" like canvases, processes, events, fonts, etc, are now just
like regular dictionaries! You can put your own things in them! And they
don't show up in all the other magic dictionaries! What this means is that
you can take any particular canvas (say, the framebuffer), and make it
into an instance of some class, by using the canvas as an instance
dictionary! So sending a message to a canvas is exactly the same thing as
sending a message to the object that uses that canvas. That means objects
can access other objects through the window hierarchy. An Item can ask its
/Parent canvas for its background color by sending it a message. Or follow
/CanvasBelow links sending /bbox messages to see which sibling Items might
have to be repained when it moves. When you get an event, you can grab its
/Canvas field and send a message to it! No more self PutInEventMgrInterest
bull-pucky! Whole new realms of possibilities open up!

	-Don