Welcome to Unix Squeak!
(Mac OS X edition)

Preface

The help viewer is buggy (at least mine is). This document is more than a page long, but there's no scroll bar. To get a scroll bar, resize the window slightly.

Introduction

This software is still very much in alpha test. This means that it will crash (frequently) at random times for no obvious reason. By continuing to use this software you agree implicitly to act as an alpha tester and hence to the following:
Subsequent to any and all crashes you will send the contents of the file Library/Logs/CrashReporter/squeak.crash.log (relative to your home directory), along with a brief description of what you were doing at the time, by email to: ian.piumarta@squeakland.org  (If you can also concoct a recipe to reproduce the crash reliably then you'll [probably] win a faster resolution of the problem.)

Installing Squeak

The '.app' bundle does not come with '.image/.changes' or '.sources' files. You will have to get these from elsewhere (at the Squeak Foundation ftp site, for example). If you keep the '.sources' file (or a link to it) in the same directory as your image(s) you'll be fine. Otherwise you can put it (or a link to it) in the 'Contents/MacOS' folder of the app bundle. You can also put the distributed '.image/.changes' files in the 'Contents/Resources' folder too, if you want a convenient place from which to begin working in a fresh image (see Providing a default image below).

Starting Squeak

Squeak can be started either from the Finder (by double-clicking on the VM or an image file) or from the command line in a terminal window. If it is started from the command line then various features (that are not available when launching it from the Finder) become available through command line options, such as running without a window (useful if the application is a Swiki or some other kind of server, for example). (Some of these options will soon be available via a preferences panel in Quartz, when I get round to implementing it.) A list of the available options is available by running Squeak from the command line and giving it the option `-help'.

If X11 is installed then display can be via X11 or via Quartz. The default is X11 if the environment variable DISPLAY is set and Quartz if Squeak is launched from the Finder. To force one or the other, Squeak can be run from the command line with the option `-quartz' or `-display <your-display>' as desired.

Note that to run Squeak in a remote window the X11 libraries must be installed on the client machine, i.e., the one on which Squeak is running. (More accurately, Squeak requires at least libX11 and libXext installed for it to be able to connect to a remote display server).

Note also that options relating to the display are only recognised after Squeak has been told which kind of display is to be used. This applies even to the `-help' option. For example, to see a list of options that includes those specific to Quartz, Squeak must be run with the options `-quartz -help', in that order.

Providing a default image

When launched from the Finder, if Squeak cannot find a default image to run in the current directory then it looks for the files squeak.image and squeak.changes in the Squeak.app/Contents/Resources directory. If these files exist then Squeak will offer to copy them (with a dialogue to choose the destination) before launching. (If these files do not exist and there is no obvious default image to run in the current directory, then double-clicking the VM will enter an `open' dialogue to locate an existing image to use.)

Known bugs, limitiations and quirks

Support

The
Squeak home page contains useful information and links to various resources.

The Unix Squeak home page has further information, source code, and the latest downloads specific to Unix and MacOSX.

If you have problems, questions, bugs to report, or specific feature requests concerning the Unix Squeak VM, contact me directly.