Specification Change Orders
for the Prototyping Tool

New Menubar and Menus (gfisher, 19mar03)

The following is the new menu structure for the prototyping tool:

File   Edit   Tools   Structure   Style   View           Help

Here is an expansion of the menus:

File: New Open ... Import ... Revert Close Close All ---------------       Save Save As ... Save All --------------- Generate ... --------------- Print ... --------------- Exit	Edit: Undo Redo Repeat ... ---------------       Cut Copy Paste Duplicate Delete Select All --------------- Find ... Spell check ... --------------- Command ... --------------- Preferences ... --------------- Mode -> Edit Run	Tools: Drawing Toolbar Component Toolbar       Property Editor Script Editor Slide Show Explorer
Structure: Group Ungroup Regroup --------------- Flip Horizontal Flip Vertical Rotate 90 Clockwise Rotate 90 CounterCW --------------- Transform -> Precise Move ... Precise Stretch ...       Precise Scale ... Precise Rotate ... Precise Reshape ... Arrange -> Bring to Front Bring Forward Send Back Send to Back Align -> Left Sides Right Sides Bottoms Tops Vertical Centers Horizontal Centers Centers Left to Right Right to Left Bottom to Top Top to Bottom Align to Grid --------------- Number of Drawings Number of Components	Style: Font ... Text Size -> Text Style -> ---------------       Brush -> None ------- <------ ------> <-----> - - - - - - - ======= --------------- Color ... Edit ... Fill -> None white horz lines vert lines right diag left diag black --------------- Color ... Edit ...	View: Zoom In Zoom Out Normal Size Center Page Home ---------------       Gridding On Hide Grid Lines Grad Spacing ... --------------- Hide Drawing Hide Components Hide Text Show Grouping --------------- Layers ... Page ... --------------- Windows ->

Here are updated tool bars:

Components: Select Menubar Button Text Box Slider List Table Pane Frame Scroll Bar More Components: Tree ColorChooser FileChooser user defined ...

Drawing: Select Move Stretch Scale Rotate Reshape Text Line MultiLine       Curve Ellipse Rectangle Polygon Shape Image Sensitize

The new menus are a combination of the current jdraw menus, the menus in the current prototyper requirements, plus some additional new commands. Note that some new "..." suffixes have been added to some of the items that did not have them before. Also some new item separators have been added. I'll do a full revision of the menu descriptions in Section 2.1 of the prototyper requirements. In the meantime, here's a summary of the changes reflected in the above new menu structure:

1. The new `File' menu is a combination of jdraw and prototyper, plus new items. All of the prototyper items are there, with `Make Prototype' changed to `Generate ...'. `Revert', `Import ...', and `Print ...' are from jdraw. `Close All' and `Save All' are new. They apply to all open canvases, whereas `Close' and `Save' apply only to the current canvas.

2. The new `Edit' menu is also a combination of jdraw and prototyper, plus new items. `Duplicate' comes from jdraw, and `Find ...' comes from the prototyper. `Spell Check ...' is new; it opens a standard spell check dialog that goes through all of the text in all components and drawings. The commands at the bottom of the current jdraw menu, starting with `Flip Horizontal', have all been moved to the new `Structure' menu. The new Edit->Command ...' item opens a simple BeanShell editor where the user can type in a scripting command. The `Preferences ...' item opens a simple preferences editing window which we can discuss at some later point. I'm thinking that it can just be a very simple text-style editor. The `Edit->Mode' command at the end was moved from the current prototyper `Tools' menu.

3. The `Tools' menu is mostly from the current prototyper, with a few modifications. The `Menu Editor' is changed to a more general `Property Editor'. The way it works is to display a property editor for the currently selected drawing or component. If the currently selected component is a menu bar or menu, the property editor is a menu editor. There are other specific property editors for other components, which will be simpler versions of the property editors in netbeans. I'll do details of these soon. The ``Slide Show' item is new in the `Tools' menu; it opens a dialog that has the same commands as are as in the current `Slide Show' menu, but laid out in a dialog. We'll work out the details soon. The `Navigator' item in the current `Tools' menu is changed to `Explorer' in the new menu. Finally, the `Mode' item in the current prototyper `Tools' menu has been moved to the new `Edit' menu.

4. The new `Structure' menu comes from the current `Structure' Edit', and `Align' menus in jdraw, and the `View', `Transform', and `Align' menus in the prototyper. `Group' and `Ungroup' are from jdraw. (See the note below about how they apply differently to drawings versus components). The `Regroup' command is new; it allows the user to run `Ungroup', change one or more elements of the group, then put them back together in the original group. Conceptually, `Regroup' undoes the most recent `Ungroup' command, even if there were edits or deletions made in between `Regroup' and `Ungroup'. The four `Flip' and `Rotate 90' commands were formerly in the jdraw `Edit' menu. The `Transform' commands are moved from the jdraw `Edit' menu and the prototyper `Transform' menu. The `Arrange' commands are moved from the jdraw `Structure' menu and `Transform->Arrange' prototyper menu. The `Align' commands are the same as in the current jdraw and prototyper, but they're moved from a top-level menu to a second-level pull-right menu. The `Number of Drawings' command is a rename of `Number of Graphics' from jdraw, and `Number of Components' does the same thing for components in the prototyper.

5. The new `Style' menu has items from the current jdraw `Text', `Brush', and `Pattern' menus, and the current prototyper `Fill' menu, with some significant reformatting. A `Text' menu was missing from the prototyper, but should have been there. The first three items in the new `Style' menu are from jdraw `Text', with reformatting. Specifically, the inline font-size and text-style items in the current jdraw menu have been put into pull-right menus instead. The `Style->Brush' and `Style->Fill' are the current jdraw `Brush' and `Pattern' menus. They supersede what's in the current prototyper `Fill' menu.

6. The new `View' menu has items from the jdraw `Options' menu and the prototyper `View' menu. `Zoom In' and `Zoom Out' are called `Reduce' and `Enlarge' in the jdraw `Options' menu. `Normal Size' is from jdraw `Options'. `Center Page' is new; it puts the current page in the center of the canvas (see below for more on paging). `Home' is from jdraw; it scrolls the drawing canvas to the upper left corner, so that the vertical scrollbar (if present) is all the way at the top and the horizontal scrollbar is all the way to the left. The `Hide Drawing' and `Hide Components' commands are show/hide toggles that do the same thing as the `Show/Hide' buttons in the toolbars; they've been moved off the toolbars into the menus. `Hide Text' is new; it's a show/hide toggle for all text graphics, and all text inside components, such as button names and label text. `Show Grouping' is also new; it puts a light grey rectangle around all groups, including nested groups. The `Layers ...' and `Page ...' commands are from the jdraw `Options' menu. The `Windows ->' pull right menu has a list of all open canvas windows. (Plus see below for more about how it's different in the prototyper versus jdraw).

An important feature of the new menu layout is that the menus for the prototyping tool are a proper superset of the jdraw menus. Here are the specific differences between the prototyper versus jdraw menus:

1. There is no `File->Generate ...' command in jdraw (and the menu separator above it is not there).
2. There is no `Edit->Mode' command in jdraw (and the menu separator above it is not there).
3. There is no `Structure->Components' command in jdraw.
4. There is no `View->Hide Components' command in jdraw.
5. There is no `Tools' menu in jdraw.
6. The first item in the `View->Windows' menu in jdraw is `Toolbar', followed by a separator. This is a checkbox menu item that has the same use as the `Drawing Toolbar' item in the `Tools' menu of the prototyper. Since jdraw has no `Tools' menu, the show/hide menu item for it goes in the `View->Windows' menu.

Clarification of Drawing and Component Interaction (gfisher, 19mar03)

When any drawing initiates within an internal frame, it is constrained to stay within that internal frame. This form of constrained drawing works the same as drawing outside the boundary of a jdraw canvas works now. Namely, when the user drags the mouse outside of the internal frame boundary, the drawing continues, but it cannot be seen outside of the constrained area. If the user leaves the mouse button down while dragging outside but then moves back inside, the drawing continues where it left off. An internal frame should have scroll bars added when a drawn objects goes beyond its boundaries, in the same way that canvas scrollbars work.

When the user performs lassoing, it applies separately to drawing objects and components. Specifically, the lassoing behavior is based on which arrow tool the user has chosen, the one in the drawing tools or the one in the component tools. When lassoing graphics, components are ignored, and vice versa. When the user clicks on a graphic or component, it automatically chooses the arrow tool in the appropriate toolbar. This means that when the user starts lassoing, either graphics or components will be active.

Some Code Generation Ideas (gfisher, 19mar03)

Here are some basic ideas on how Java code generation can work.

1. When an align command and group command are followed in immediate succession on a set of components, this successive pair of commands has a special effect. Namely, it places the components in a horizontal or vertical box, with the appropriate alignment.

2. All of the drawing objects are collected into a single jpeg image and placed in the background of the generated GUI. Any boxes created by align/group command pairs are turned into javax.swing.Boxes.

3. The page layout information in the drawing editor is totally ignored during code generation. This page information is strictly for formatting on a printer.

New name for the Prototyping Tool (gfisher, 19mar03)

How about "ProtoJ" as the name for the prototyping tool?