Best Tools for JAVA/Best Tools for JAVA.iso/JAVA_ALL/J_AUTHOR/Mojo/data.2/README.TXT

Text File | 1996-07-02 | 8.8 KB | 257 lines

Mojo Development Environment for Java


RELEASE 1.2 (EVALUATION COPY)

NOTE: This version will expire in 30 days from installation.
      After which, certain features will be disabled, such
      as Saving.

To order Mojo, visit http://www.PenumbraSoftware.com
               or call [phone] (USA)

==================================================================

Mojo is comprised of two elements: the Designer and the Coder.

The Mojo Designer is designed for non-programmers who wish to enter the
domain of Java programming with the smallest possible learning curve.
From the outset novice users should be able to create simple
functioning applets which can be run over the Internet or locally.
However, Mojo differs from traditional drag-and-drop environments in
that it also allows the novice user to progress and development more
sophisticated applications and take advantage of the complete Java
programming language.

Although the emphasis is on non-programmers, experienced programmers
will benefit from use of Mojo in its reuse of components and easy
extensibility.  Since the complete Java programming API is available for
programmers, experienced programmers should not feel limited by the
environment in the Coder.

NOTE: Offline MS-Word Documents are available in the DOCS directory
      directly off the install path.

      Included are:

      Programmers Quickstart
      Inventory Demo (Complete Tutorial)

--------------------------- Sample Applet -----------------------------

1.  In the Designer,  drop in a Button into the interface by Clicking
    on the button icon in the Component Palette at the top of the
    Designer.  Then click in the Drawing Area to place it.

ADDING A SOUND:

Mojo incorporates a sophisticated means of allowing the user to incorporate
functionality without touching a single line of code.  This is accomplished
using Actions.  Actions can be dragged and dropped into any
Component's Action list to allow a particular response to an Event.
Events are things that happen to a component.  For instance, one
event is the Action event which occurs when a user clicks on a Button.
In the following example, we will play a sound when the user clicks on
a button.

2. From the "Window" menu, select "Available Actions".
3. Click on the Action tab at the bottom of the Selected Component
   window.
4. Select the Event Name to be "action" ( you will need to scroll down
   the list).  NOTE: Buttons only respond to the action event in Java.
5. Drag the Play Sound task from the Task List to the Gray area of the
   Selected Component window.  You will see the NO icon turn into a
   drop icon.
6. When the dialog box comes up asking for sound file name, click on
   specify file.  Change directories into the "sounds" directory.  We
   have provided you with a sampling of .au sounds.  Select any of
   the sound files.  You must use the Specify File button to specify
   sounds, as this will also copy the sound resources you select into
   the Output directory of your project.

   Some sample sounds are:

                bong.au
                gong.au
                bubble1.au
                dah.au
                space.au    <-- this one plays a lot of music (try it)
                train.au

7.  Click on Ok to process the Task.


ADDING AN IMAGE:

8.  Click the Properties tab of the Selected Component window to see the
    properties again.
9.  Select the "Picture" component located in the "Standard" category.
10. Drop a Picture into the Screen by clicking in the drawing area.
11. Change the Filename property to one of the following by clicking on
    the Filename field of the properties box.  You should see a button
    with three dots (...) appear.  Click on that button and browse to
    the directory "images".  You will find an assortment of images there.
    Select on of the images and click Ok.

    Some images provided are:

                penpag.gif
                gopag2.gif
                mojopag.gif
                javapag.gif
                blacbox.gif

        (for a complete listing see MOJO\images\*.gif)


RUNNING THE APPLET:

12. "Run Applet" under the Project menu item in the main menu bar.
     (i.e. Project|Run Applet)


PREVIEWING THE APPLET:

13. If you wish to view an applet which you have generated most recently,
    you should choose Project|Preview Applet.

ANIMATIONS:

14. The Animation component found under the Animation tab allows you to
    incorporate .GIF animations into your project.  After dropping
    in an animation into the Screen, you should specify the first frame
    of the Animation.  For example, the waving Duke animation from Sun
    has frames Duke1, Duke2, Duke3, ...

    Click on the First Animation Frame property.  You should see a button
    with an ellipses (three dots) appear.

    Click on the button and browse to the "images" sub-directory.

    Select Duke1.gif

    Click on Ok.

    Mojo will recognize how many frames of animations there are and
    load them accordingly.  You will only see the first frame of the
    animation until you run the applet.

    Properties of Interest:

    First Animation Frame   -- which animation to load.  select the first
                               frame which must be ?????1.gif
                               All frames should be numbered sequentially
                               starting from 1.
    Delay (in milliseconds) -- how long to wait between frames


CODER:  (Switch to the Coder by choosing Window|Coder)

The Mojo Coder is the backend counter part to the Designer.  It is
arranged like a Smalltalk class browser.

It consists of two hierarchies: a Class/Component hierarchy and a
Project hierarchy.  The Project hierarchy shows the current Applet
being built and how it is organized.  The Component hierarchy shows
available classes and methods.

SWITCHING BETWEEN HIERARCHY VIEWS:

To see the Class Hierarchy, click on the tall skinny button found
to the left of the Project Hierarchy with the ">" on it.  This will
slide out the Class Hierarchy.  You should use this button to
switch between both views.

DRAG AND DROP INSTANTIATION:

You can instantiate a class in the Coder by simply dragging a Component
from the Class Hierarchy to the Project Hierachy.  The currently
selected component in the Project hierarchy serves as the parent
of the newly added componet.

OVERRIDING FUNCTIONS:

Mojo provides an easy means of overriding functions.  In the "Available
Function" list of the Project, click with the RIGHT mouse button.  Go
down to "Override Function" and you will see a list of all inherited
functions which you can then override.  For methods, you will have to
click on the Override Functions option to bring up the method browser
since the list is normally too large for a popup menu.

MOJO PARENT REFERENCE MODEL:

Referencing components in Mojo is significantly easier than using
pure Java.  There are two primary keywords used for accessing
parts of your applet:

        applet  <-- currently running applet
        parent  <-- parent of the object

For instance to find out where the applet was started from, you could
call:

        applet.getCodeBase();

For the given hierarchy below, you can reference another components
methods and instances variables using the parent-reference model:

--+
  |
  +- Panel1
        |
        +- Button1
        |
        +- Button2

In the action event of Button2, you can call the action event of
the Button1 with:

  Button2:
        public boolean action(Event evt, Object what)
        {
           parent.Button1.action(evt, what);

           return(true);
        }

Using parent, you are able to access all parts of the Project hierarchy.

INITIALIZATIONS:

Because of the nature of a visual environment, components which are
drag-and-dropped in having implicit constructor calls.

To preform initialization which must be run before your component
will function properly, add in the method:

        void initialize()

Common uses for the initialize method is to set initial values of
instances variables.

OUTPUT DIRECTORY:

The default output directory is:

         MOJOBETA\myproject

In that directory are the following files:

        Client.HTM      <-- HTML File for bringing up applet
        Client.java     <-- generated Java source
        *.class         <-- generated class files

FINAL NOTE:

This README is not intended as a manual, please contact Penumbra Software,
Inc. for more information on Mojo.

They can be reached at:

        [e-mail] (for registered users)

                         or

             http://www.PenumbraSoftware.com