Blaine Buxton: Positronic Vibrations From Alto Dorado

Taken from the comp.lang.smalltalk.dolphin:

> Besides the IdeaSpace, what else is new?

Well, off the top of my head, and in no particular order:
1) New look tools with sliding panes (imaginatively called Slidey Inny
Outey Things, SIOTs) :-)
2) New look Resource Browser with iconic categories and preview pane.
http://www.object-arts.com/dow nloads/6.0/images/d6rb.png
3) New look View Composer with sliding resource toolbox and Inspector
panes.  The View Composer now supports undo.
http://www.object-arts.com/dow nloads/6.0/images/d6vc.png
4) Improved garbage collector giving approximately 20% speed
improvement overall.
5) Compiler now supports true block closures and not just a
Smalltalk-80 block semantics.
6) All code editing is now done using the Scintilla code editor.  This
means we get away from the vagaries of the Windows Rich Text Control
and also we now have auto completion (IntelliSense).
http://www.object-arts.com/dow nloads/6.0/images/d6ac.png
7) New "literal filer" for storing views which opens up the resources
such that their contents can be refactored etc.  Storing resources in
this way also greatly simplifies the image stripping process at
deployment.
8) New Sockets2 package that uses overlapped/blocking calls rather than
asynchronous messages.  The old package is provided for backwards
compatibility.
9) The Refactoring Browser rewrite tool has been included as a plug-in
in the class and system browsers.
http://www.object-arts.com/dow nloads/6.0/images/d6rwt.png
10) The class and system browsers now have a Code Mentor plug-in that
comments on the style of your code.  It runs the analysis in the
background as you work and is based on the SmallLint facility that
comes with the refactoring engine.
http://www.object-arts.com/dow nloads/6.0/images/d6cm.png
11) Views now support background colour inheritance.
12) New TabViewXP view that supports XP-style tab views in all
orientations (unlike the standard Windows control).
13) Dynamic syntax highlighting in all workspaces as you type.
14) Workspaces highlight compilation errors and warnings with squiggly
underlinesand will display help for these when the mouse hovers over
them.
15) Various new view controls such as: SysLink, LinkButton,
MonthCalendarView, SpinButton.
16) Windows XP application manifest is now included as part of the
version resource in deployed executables.
17) Application deployment now creates a complete XML based contents
list of the entire application.  This can be browsed from within
Dolphin using a class browser to see exactly what methods and classes
are present in the application.
http://www.object-arts.com/dow nloads/6.0/images/d6cm.png
18) New Method Explorer which replaces the old Method Browser to
provide a hierarchical trail of browse requests.  The aim, like with
the IdeaSpace, is to reduce the number of open windows while working
with Dolphin.
http://www.object-arts.com/dow nloads/6.0/images/d6mex.png
There are dozens of other minor enhancements and bug fixes and probably
some other fairly major ones that I've forgotten but the above should
give you a flavour of what is coming in Dolphin 6.
Best regards,
--
Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
www.object-arts.com

WOW! That sure is a lot of stuff to pack in for a release. I'm beyond excited. I'm so lusting for Dolphin 6.0. I feel like a kitten that can see the cream, but can't lap it up. Dolphin on!

posted by Blaine at 7:48 PM |  0 comments |  Post a Comment