The Undiscoverable/Squeak/Halo

Object Halos

Right-clicking on any object in Squeak or Etoys brings up a halo of tool icons, as in this image. Etoys provides an interactive tutorial on Halo tools in the form of a game called the Demon Castle.

Starting at the top left and proceeding counterclockwise, the icons for a Workspace window are

• X, Remove from screen

• O, Collapse

• Eye, Open a viewer for me.

• Rectangle, Make a tile representing this object

• Whirly square, Rotate

• Title

• Box and partial frame, Change size

• Eye dropper, Change color

• Wrench, Debug

• Two rectangles, Duplicate

• Square with corners, Move

• Square with tongs, Pick up

• Menu, as shown below

Most of these are reasonably discoverable. The object viewer requires further explanation.

Different kinds of object may have a different selection of tools in the halo. For example, the halo on a text object includes tools for selecting fonts and applying styles to portions of the text.