Help - Glossary -
M - Morphic
The Squeak Language consists of Smalltalk80 plus Morphic, which is written in
Smalltalk, but adds so many different classes as to make it a real new
conceptual addition to Smalltalk80, and indeed it was to a large extent
conceived and written by the original developers of Smaltalk80.
The term "morph" is derived from Greek, in which it means "form". Almost anything that can appear on the screen in Squeak is a morph i.e. a form with minimal abilities which it can exercise when clicked. In fact, whatever appears on the screen in Squeak is a part of an object that is running, and thus (almost) everything that can be coded in the language Squeak or Smalltalk80 can be added as method to some morph in Squeak.
To find things out about a morph, place the cursor on it and Middle-Click with the mouse on it. This will pop up a series of icons around it, called a halo, with which you can do lots of things with the morph, and also learn about it.
If you want to see a catalogue of morphs and play with them, put the cursor in a Project window and type Cmd-o or click up the Worldmenu - objects (o).