Smalltalk GUI libraries

Question

I am working on creating a Smalltalk application with Pharo 4.0 for Checkers and was trying to see which GUI library could work for my application.

I see that there are 3 options

• Spec
• Athens
• Morphic

I could not find a lot of information on pros and cons for each GUI library. However, looking at the details I am inclining towards Morphic .

Could someone please give me some advise on which one to use and advantages/disadvantages details based on experience or know how?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Athens is a low level vector graphics. You can youse is to draw everything. Morphic is a UI building framework with a basic components. There is also BLOC which is a successor of Morphic. If you don't plan to release your app in next half of a year but rather want to pay with programming I'd suggest you to use BLOC, as in future Morphic will be replaced by BLOC.

Spec and Glamour are high level frameworks which provide a DSL to quickly build UI. Spec is widget oriented and Glamour is browser oriented.

For your task it think that Morphic or BLOC are the most appropriate ones

Answer 2

Migrating from Morphic to Bloc will not be very complex. Bloc tears apart the view and event listener and has different layouters. It also has local coordinates and transformations instead of the global coordinates of Morphic. Knowledge of Morphic transfers well to Bloc.