Skip to main content
Engineering LibreTexts

6.9: The File List Browser

  • Page ID
    38007
  • \( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

    The file list browser is in fact a general-purpose tool for browsing the file system (and also FTP servers) from Squeak. You can open it from the World ⊳ open... ⊳ file list menu, or drag it from the Tools flap. What you see of course depends on the contents of your local file system, but a typical view is shown in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\).

    A file list browser.
    Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): A file list browser.

    When you first open a file list browser it will be focussed on the current directory, that is, the one from which you started Squeak. The title bar shows the path to this directory. The larger pane on the left-hand side can be used to navigate the file system in the conventional way. When a directory is selected, the files that it contains (but not the directories) are displayed on the right. This list of files can be filtered by entering a Unix-style pattern in the small box at the top-left of the window. Initially, this pattern is *, which matches all file names, but you can type a different string there and accept it, changing the pattern. (Note that a * is implicitly prepended and appended to the pattern that you type.) The sort order of the files can be changes using the name, date and size buttons. The rest of the buttons depend on the name of the file selected in the browser. In Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\), the file name has the suffix .cs, so the browser assumes that it is a change set, and provides buttons to install it (which files it in to a new change set whose name is derived from the name of the file), to browse the changes in the file, to examine the code in the file, and to filein the code into the current change set. You might think that the conflicts button would tell you about changes in the change set that conflicted with existing code in the image, but it doesn’t. Instead it just checks for potential problems in the file that might indicate that the file cannot properly be loaded (such as the presence of linefeeds).

    A File Contents Browser.
    Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): A File Contents Browser.

    Because the choice of buttons to display depends on the file’s name, and not on its contents, sometimes the button that you want won’t be on the screen. However, the full set of options is always available from the yellow button more... menu, so you can easily work around this problem.

    The code button is perhaps the most useful for working with change sets; it opens a browser on the contents of the change set file; an example is shown in Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\). The file contents browser is similar to the system browser except that it does not show categories, just classes, protocols and methods. For each class, the browser will tell you whether the class already exists in the system and whether it is defined in the file (but not whether the definitions are identical). It will show the methods in each class, and (as shown in Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)) will show you the differences between the current version and the version in the file. Yellow-button menu items in each of the top four panes will also let you file in the whole of the change set, or the corresponding class, protocol or method.


    This page titled 6.9: The File List Browser is shared under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Andrew P. Black, Stéphane Ducasse, Oscar Nierstrasz, Damien Pollet via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.