#Amber Skeleton

Amber Skeleton is a template project for creating your own Amber-based projects.

Features

Link to Amber using git submodule

By using git submodules to link to Amber, you no longer need to fork and include the entire Amber source tree as part of your own project.

See Working with submodules and Git Submodules: Adding, Using, Removing, Updating for more information about using submodules.

Easily load code from other Amber-based projects

You can use git submodules to link to other Amber projects and then arrange to load the code from that project by including the following expression in the ready: option of the loadAmber() function in your index.html file:

smalltalk.AmberProjectImporter._importStPackages_prefix_(
              [ 
                'ExternalProjectPackage',
              ],
              '/projects/externalProject/');

The above expression will load the code form the /projects/externalProject/st directory. If you want to load the development '.js code use the following:

smalltalk.AmberProjectImporter._importJsPackages_prefix_(
              [ 
                'ExternalProjectPackage',
              ],
              '/projects/externalProject/');

and for deployment (i.e., loading the .deploy.js files:

smalltalk.AmberProjectImporter._importDeployJsPackages_prefix_(
              [ 
                'ExternalProjectPackage',
              ],
              '/projects/externalProject/');

When you use AmberProjectImporter to import your code, AmberProjectExporter will automatically commit your code to the same directories (js and st) from which you loaded the code.

Share code with other Smalltalk dialects

If you install the Cypress package support (included by default) and register your package as a cypress package:

AmberProjectExporter 
		registerPackage: 'MyPackageName' 
		type: 'cypress' 
		prefix: 'packages/'

You package will be stored in the Cypress package format which is understood by a number of Smalltalk dialects (Pharo, Squeak, GemStone, Amber, and VW as of this writing. A VAST port is in the works).

If you want to load code from another Smalltalk dialect that was saved in Cypress package format, execute the following code in a workspace:

CypressAmberImporter
		importCypressPackages: #('ForeignPackageName')  
		prefix: 'path to directory containing ForiegnPackageName.package'

As of this writing, I haven't done any experiments loading code from other dialects - Amber is the first non-Monticello dialect I've worked with), so I'll be interested in your results:).

Examples

This project is a perfect example. In particular look at the index.html file for examples of loading code using the AmberProjectImporter class.

Installation

To start working with your own Amber Skeleton project:

1. Fork the Amber Skeleton project.
2. [Rename the forked project] to the name you want the project to have. Note that you might want to have a personal fork of the Amber Skeleton project so you can customize the project for your own needs.
3. Clone your project to your local machine.
4. Change the commit reference for the git submodules (i.e., remove and add the submodule references). It is easier to this immediately after cloning. See Git Submodules: Adding, Using, Removing, Updating for more information about using submodules.
5. init and update the `git submodules:

```shell
    git submodule init
    git submodule update
```

6. Build your Amber File server. See the README in the server/pharo directory.