Rack

A hierarchical ordering system for objects in Squeak/Smalltalk with a graphical interface

How to install

1. Get Squeak 5.0 or later
2. Load Metacello
3. Finally, load the Rack with the following command:

Metacello new
  baseline: 'Rack';
  repository: 'github://hpi-swa/Rack/repository';
  load.

Getting Started

User interface

You can access the Rack tool through the Apps menu in the world main docking bar. When it opens the first time you only see an empty root. Right-clicking on it gives you a menu which allows you to create a folder.

In order to use drag and drop to add objects to the Rack you have to activate the Rack drag and drop setting in Apps>Preferences. After activating it you can drag objects from the object inspector to any Rack folder.

Programming Interface

The global rack instance is available as TheRack. You can access entries of a folder using the / message, regardless of whether they are folders or objects:

TheRack / 'writings' / 'essays 2017' / 'on racks and boxes'

In order to add an object to a folder simply use the add: and add:named: messages:

TheRack / 'writings' add: 'First sketch of a new essay without a title'.

TheRack / 'writings' add: 'First sketch of a new essay' named: 'essay without a title yet'

Correspondingly, the messages remove: entryName and rename: entryName to: newEntryName provide other ways to modify the folders.

How to cite this work

If you did work based on / or build using the Rack and want to write about the work, you can reference the Rack through the reference at the bottom.

inproceedings{Rein2017LYP,
 author = {Rein, Patrick and Lincke, Jens and Ramson, Stefan and Mattis, Toni and Hirschfeld, Robert},
 title = {Living in Your Programming Environment: Towards an Environment for Exploratory Adaptations of Productivity Tools},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGPLAN International Workshop on Programming Experience},
 series = {PX/17.2},
 year = {2017},
 isbn = {978-1-4503-5522-3},
 location = {Vancouver, BC, Canada},
 pages = {17--27},
 numpages = {11},
 url = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3167108},
 doi = {10.1145/3167108},
 acmid = {3167108},
 publisher = {ACM},
 address = {New York, NY, USA},
 keywords = {desktop environment, exploratory programming, live programming, productivity tools, programming environment},
}