Test experience/suggestions/questions

[fortyn]

Disclaimer:
I have fairly extensive Smalltalk knowledge but it is a bit rusty
because I haven't used it professionally in quite a while though I
still like to fool around with it.

So I finally tried out WebVelocity and here is my first experience
after 6 hours.

Neat work with rough edges.
Don't get my points wrong, I am very sympathetic and trying to help
polishing it.

1.) My first stumbling block was ironically with the "Hello World"
app:
I added the rendering method by mistake as class method and it took me
a while to figure out where the problem is.
This mistake is easy to make for a novice because under "Class
Methods" there is also the protocol "rendering". This should not be,
as far as I know no class renders itself.

2.) I have this Scriptaculous test app (no DB) that I tried and got
basically working in decent time.
But - I have to load it and the Scriptaculous library manually after
starting WebVelocity.
How can I automate this?
Seems like "autoload" might be the answer - but what Smalltalk
expression do I use to load Scriptaculous from the general repository?

3.) The Seaside configuration is not saved when publishing.
Where is it anyway? I think I figured it out once in Squeak but I
forgot.
I have to add the Scriptaculous Library to the Seaside configuration
and change the resource URL manually.
My workaround for now is to do it programmatically.
It would be nice to have the configuration saved by VisualWave - or
would it?

4.) The debugger does not display the control icons in my Firefox
3.5.3 (MacBook Pro, Mac OS X 10.4.11)
Bummer.

5.) Why cant I search for methods in the System Browser of the
WebVelocity VW image? (Menu item is dimmed)
This last one is irrelevant to VisualWave but I am curious anyway.

Norbert

[James Robertson]

On (1), my only recommendation is the docs (and screencasts on the Web
Velocity site)

On (2) and (3), if your application specifies the file libraries it
needs, then the pre-reqs will be set properly for loading

On (4), do you mean the step/step into/proceed (etc) buttons? Can you
send a screen capture?

On (5), use the search facility - it brings up senders and implementors

[Michael Lucas-Smith]

fortyn wrote:
> Disclaimer:
> I have fairly extensive Smalltalk knowledge but it is a bit rusty
> because I haven't used it professionally in quite a while though I
> still like to fool around with it.
>
> So I finally tried out WebVelocity and here is my first experience
> after 6 hours.
>
> Neat work with rough edges.
> Don't get my points wrong, I am very sympathetic and trying to help
> polishing it.
>
> 1.) My first stumbling block was ironically with the "Hello World"
> app:
> I added the rendering method by mistake as class method and it took me
> a while to figure out where the problem is.
> This mistake is easy to make for a novice because under "Class
> Methods" there is also the protocol "rendering". This should not be,
> as far as I know no class renders itself.
>

That's a good point, we'll have to look in to why there was a rendering
category on the class side.

> 2.) I have this Scriptaculous test app (no DB) that I tried and got
> basically working in decent time.
> But - I have to load it and the Scriptaculous library manually after
> starting WebVelocity.
> How can I automate this?
> Seems like "autoload" might be the answer - but what Smalltalk
> expression do I use to load Scriptaculous from the general repository?
>

Once you've loaded Scriptaculous and use it in your application, when
you publish your application it will have a prerequisite for
Scriptaculous. The next time you load your application, it'll also load
Scriptaculous. Alternatively, you can copy the scriptaculous files in to
the autoload directory.

> 3.) The Seaside configuration is not saved when publishing.
> Where is it anyway? I think I figured it out once in Squeak but I
> forgot.
> I have to add the Scriptaculous Library to the Seaside configuration
> and change the resource URL manually.
> My workaround for now is to do it programmatically.
> It would be nice to have the configuration saved by VisualWave - or
> would it?
>

In WebVelocity 1.1, we're moving all the configurations in to files
directly from the seaside configuration objects. For WV1.0, however, you
go to the Component tab of a WAComponent subclass and there you can add
Scriptaculous to your component. This will create the class side
#initialize method for your class to include Scriptaculous.

> 4.) The debugger does not display the control icons in my Firefox
> 3.5.3 (MacBook Pro, Mac OS X 10.4.11)
> Bummer.
>
>

Could you right click on those control icons and inspect them in
firefox, view the image, see what happens when you try to go directly
to, say, the Step image. I can't think of a good reason why they
wouldn't download.

> 5.) Why cant I search for methods in the System Browser of the
> WebVelocity VW image? (Menu item is dimmed)
> This last one is irrelevant to VisualWave but I am curious anyway.
>

I had not noticed that - nothing deliberate was done to disable it. The
RB search facilities should all be working as per normal. The
alternative is to use searchlight, which is sitting in the bottom left
corner of the launcher and in the top right corner of the RB on the toolbar.

Cheers,
Michael

[fortyn]

Thanks for 1.) and 3.)

> 2.) I have this Scriptaculous test app (no DB) that I tried and got
> > basically working in decent time.
> > But - I have to load it and the Scriptaculous library manually after
> > starting WebVelocity.
> > How can I automate this?
> > Seems like "autoload"  might be the answer - but what Smalltalk
> > expression do I use to load Scriptaculous from the general repository?
>
> Once you've loaded Scriptaculous and use it in your application, when
> you publish your application it will have a prerequisite for
> Scriptaculous. The next time you load your application, it'll also load
> Scriptaculous. Alternatively, you can copy the scriptaculous files in to
> the autoload directory.

Nope, it doesn't autoload.
It gives an error: (sorry can't have a screen dump here)
--------------------
Load failed with the following messages:
Unable to load prerequisite Seaside-Scriptaculous
Continue?
--------------------
(with the only choice:) cancel (which is kind of funny)
--------------------
My guess is that it fails because Seaside-Scriptaculous is in another
repository as the application.

> 4.) The debugger does not display the control icons in my Firefox
> > 3.5.3 (MacBook Pro, Mac OS X 10.4.11)
> > Bummer.
>
> Could you right click on those control icons and inspect them in
> firefox, view the image, see what happens when you try to go directly
> to, say, the Step image. I can't think of a good reason why they
> wouldn't download.

The images are accessible, I can see for instance:
http://localhost:7777/files/ToolbarIconLibrary/debugRun
The problem is in the generated html.
These images do not have a source, this is how they are generated
(Firebug):
<div id="debugger_controls">
<img title="Step Into"/>
<img title="Step"/>
<img title="Step Over"/>
<span> </span>
<img title="Resume"/>
<img title="Terminate"/>
<img title="Restart"/>
<img title="Run to end of method"/>
</div>

Being no javascript expert my feeble debugging efforts were useless.
I restarted Firefox with all my Add-ons disabled - no luck.
Any ideas? I can help.

greetings
Norbert