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6.2 Ellipse Morph

Let’s start with one of the basic morphs, an EllipseMorph. You could write EllipseMorph new openInWorld and Do-it, but we are doing visual things for now, so let’s get a World Menu and select from New Morph... Basic submenu and drag onto the desktop.

Every time one obtains a morph from a New Morph... submenu, one gets a different morph but made to a standard style.

The basic challenge of user interface design is to communicate visibility and control. Where am I? What can I do here?

One of the balance points in design is how to eliminate clutter. One useful strategy is to reveal capabilities in context as they are needed.

In the case of Cuis-Smalltalk, you have to know some basics because helpful tools are there but stay out of the way. At any time you can Right-Click on the desktop to get the World Menu. You can also Middle-Click on any Morph to get a halo of construction handles, which show up as small colored circular icons. If you pause the cursor over one of these, you get a tool tip, a temporary text popup who’s name should give a clue to its usage.

If you click elsewhere the construction handles leave, but you can get them back at any time with a mouse click.

Now that you know this, move the yellow lower right handle with tool tip Change size via Click-Drag. Just hold down the left mouse button while the cursor is over the handle, move the cursor to the right and down, and release the mouse button.