Our David is cute. While testing today that the material editor was working, he captured the display material of the Python timer application running on the display stand, and then applied the material to the floor. The floor, the running application, and the material editor’s texture card and teapot sampler are all counting down.
<%image(20090106-material.jpg|713|476|Editing the material of the floor, using the material of the running Python timer application. All are counting down.)%>
People get excited about Croquet for being real-time collaborative, or game-like 3D, or for embedded applications. But a key part of what makes all of this possible is that everything is very deeply object-oriented. The material of the timer app display is an object, and when that material object is shared by the floor and the parts of the material editor, they all behave the same.
Econoklastic
One Comment
This kind of thing is huge fun. I can remember taking the Bouncing Atoms thing in Squeak and, after enabling Accept Drops a couple of times (or something like that) dropping it on a pumped up Teddy object in Squeak Wonderland. Someone on the Squeak list had described this and it worked! Cool stuff.