This week we’ve been writing the console that our disclosures will appear in with Glade. In addition to displaying Scheme commands, our interface will also allow users to easily search, copy and clear the text buffer with buttons in the main window. We hope that the accessibility of these functions will encourage novice programmers to read through their code. They will also be able to manipulate the program to some extent by commenting out lines or adding their own comments within a dialog window. Beyond the ability to comment, we decided to limit the user’s control over what appears in the buffer. The text window will not be editable and programmers will not be permitted to delete lines—though they can comment out unwanted commands or clear the entire buffer at once. This decision was based on our belief that the disclosures window should be the best representation of whatever the user’s actions were within the GIMP. Any further modifications of the code, if desired by the user, can still be made in the MediaScheme window.
Our buttons/functions are as follows:
The CLEAR ALL Button:
The “Clear All” button works as you’d expect: when clicked, it clears the entire text buffer, including all commands and comments. Before doing so, a dialog will appear prompting the user to confirm whether they’d like to clear the buffer to avoid mistakes. This feature will help novice users refresh the disclosures window after copying to avoid long and unwieldy programs.
The COPY ALL Button:
This button selects all the text in the buffer and copies it to the clipboard so that the user may paste their program into the MediaScheme console. There will also be a copy selected function, located under the edit menu in the toolbar.
The PREFERENCES pane:
Opens a dialog that allows the user to change the font type, text and window color in the text buffer.
The COMMENT button:
If text is selected, this button comments out the selected lines of text. If no text is selected, the button opens up a dialog window that allows a user to type in a comment. Their comment will be added to the end of the file. This feature will help the programmer exclude commands that they do not want executed in the MediaScheme console or make notes as they experiment within the GIMP.
The SEARCH feature:
The search bar at the top of the interface will allow the user to search the buffer for instances of a certain keyword. It will be useful when a programmer needs to see all the commands that correspond to changes to the GIMP context, or any other actions.
In providing these features to users of our console, we hope to encourage experimentation in GIMP while allowing some degree of customization.
