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Things to know about Smalltalk GUI for this class
This is for people who do not have much experience with Smalltalk GUI and do not know where to start! :)
The hardest part for me in this class was learning how to work in Visualworks, most of all the UI painter, or GUI. I’m sure there are other people out there like me who would appreciate some tips. This isn’t intended to be a tutorial, but some information you might want to know when starting this class.
First of all, it was hard to find some good tutorials or examples for creating GUI.
Here are some useful ones I found either through Google, or Bob posted it somewhere.
- http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/VisualWorks/Joy+of+Smalltalk (chapters 6-8, 12)
- http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~ducasse/FreeBooks/ByExample/28%20-%20Chapter%2026%20-%20Changing%20Widget.pdf
The best source I used was the GUI Developer’s Guide, which you automatically get when you install Visualworks. (…\Cincom\vw7.4nc\doc\GUIDevGuide.pdf )
Instead of just writing code, you have a program similar to paint, where you create a canvas, put widgets on them, and connect them with certain methods to make them do something. If you look through the guides you can pick up these basics pretty easily.
I recommend that when you get the first programming assignment (ours was a Sudoku program) you should check out the GUI in the code you are given and mess around with it to see what you can do and what restrictions you have. The final project involves a lot of complicated GUI, and it can get pretty overwhelming, any previous work on GUI would help a lot.
Here are some things you should be ready to be able to do (beyond the basics) when you start coding your final project.
First of all, you might be asked to make a mockup of what your program will look like, so go with the simplest layout possible. This will make it easier to implement, and you can always add in fancy stuff when you are finished and have some extra time.
Know how to…
- successfully connect the GUI with the backend of your code. You should know your code front to back (since this is a group project, chances are you will not have written it all) so you easily know how to make your widgets do what they are supposed to.
- store and manipulate user input. When the user enters some input (like in a textbox) and changes to another view, they should be able to come back and still see what they typed, or some kind of result of their input.
- make interchangeable windows or tabs. Having tabs or a menu to navigate through different views is much better for organization.
- manually draw onto a view. Yes, you can actually create GUI through just code and not use the UI painter, but visually it does not get very complex. This is especially helpful for generating diagrams.
I’m sure there are way more complicated possibilities out there, but these are the kinds of things my group used in our project.
I hope some of this information was helpful! Good luck with this class! :)
Links to this Page
- Cases last edited on 30 July 2011 at 2:33 am by r59h132.res.gatech.edu
- Index of Individual Cases last edited on 3 May 2011 at 12:46 pm by r52h48.res.gatech.edu