Squeak Tips

Below, you will find tips that will help you when using and building Squeak projects. The Squeak environment is unique and innovative. It requires some time to get used to navigating in Squeak.

  1. GPS PROBLEMS:
    Are you having trouble with your three circles intersecting at a single point? You have to follow the directions very carefully and in the correct order. Check the following:
    • Be sure you always click the yellow start/reset button whenever you begin a new trilateration.
    • Be sure you entered the distances sent by Norbert and Zot into the correct satellite boxes. The boxes are color coded and named by the color of the satellite.
    • Be sure you click the correct trilaterate button. Look carefully at the satellites that sent you Norbert and Zot's distances and choose the trilaterate button for those three satellites. The trilaterate button on the left is for the three leftmost satellites and the trilaterate button on the right is for the three rightmost satellites. The other two trilaterate buttons are for the inbetween satellite clusters and they go in order.
  2. FLAPS:
    When you open a Squeak project, an orange flap called Navigator will appear on the left and a red flap called Supplies will appear on the right. The Navigator flap contains basic navigation tools: PUBLISH IT!, FIND, Escape Browser, QUIT, and the paint brush.
    • PUBLISH IT! allows you to save any project you open to your computer (be sure to click Save on local disk only). The project will be saved in the Squeaklets folder.
    • FIND allows you to open Squeak projects. When you click on FIND, you will see Squeakland-BSS, Squeakland-Projects, and the name of your computers local folder created when you installed Squeak. The first two are projects on the Internet and you can explore. To get the projects in your Squeaklets folder, click the right facing triangle to the left of your folder name to open it and then select Squeaklets to view a list of projects. Finally select the project you wish to open and click OK.
    • Escape Browser removes all the other computer controls (like the Windows task bar) so Squeak has the full screen. Escape browser changes to Browser Reentry so you can return to the other computer controls.
    • QUIT allows you to quit Squeak.
    • The paint brush opens a paint tool and it puts a skin over the work area so you don't accidently activate Squeak buttons, etc. Paint away and click Keep if you like what you have created.
    The Supplies flap contains many very useful items that you can use to build your own Squeak project or modify one that you are working on. With Squeak, "authoring is always on" and you can be creative and explore at any time.
  3. HALOS:
    The halos appear around any Squeak object (sometimes you have to hold down the alt key and click the object to see them) and the halos open up the power of Squeak. If you are just starting and see the halos, move to a clear area and click the left mouse button so you don't activate something unexpectedly that will interfer with your task. When you have used Squeak more, you will want to experiment by clicking the buttons in the halos around different objects. Then you can really create with Squeak.
  4. QUITTING:
    There are two ways to quit: if you have escaped the browser, click QUIT on the Navigator flap. If you are still in the browser, you can also click the X at the upper right to quit.
  5. TOTAL MESS:
    If you have clicked in the wrong place and nothing is working any more, you can always start over. Just quit Squeak and go back to the first step where you opened the project and repeat that step. If you have PUBLISHED the project to your computer, then you can use FIND on the Navigator flap to reopen the project. Never PUBLISH a project that is messed up.
  6. PUBLISH:
    If a project you find on the Internet (such as a NASA CONNECT Squeak project) is large (over 500KB), then it would be best to PUBLISH the project to your computer and run it directly from your computer as described above.
  7. MORE:
    There is much more information about Squeak, including tutorials, at the Squeakland web site.

Designed by Randall Caton during November 2003.      You can reach me at rcaton@pcs.cnu.edu.