ST 4U 219: Creating a Visual Part in VA Smalltalk
Today's Smalltalk 4 You adds a UI that connects to the timer (non visual) part we created last time. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
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Today we'll create a visual part in VA Smalltalk, and hook it up to the non-visual part we created last time. Here's the end result - we'll walk through the steps, taking the connections one by one, from the top of the screen down:
First, how did we add the non-visual part? We used the "add part" menu option in the composition editor, and selected the part by browsing for the name. It appears as a "puzzle piece", since there's no UI. To connect up the #timerFired event to a script, right click on the part, and select "connect". When presented with options, select the script - you'll add a #beep method:
The code for that is as follows:
beep CgDisplay default bell: 20
That will simply play a tone when the timer fires - that way we can tell whether our hookups worked. The properties for this look like this:
To get the UI parts on the canvas, simply select them in the toolbar at the top of the window, click on the canvas below, and move them around. To set properties, double click - you'll need to set the input field to be an integer, for instance.
Next, create a connection from the input field to the timer object. Hook up the "Object" (value) attribute of the field to the length attribute of the timer. Now when we enter a value, it will flow to the timer object:
Now create a connection from the checkbox to the repeat attribute (which we set up as a boolean) in the timer. If checked, this will run our timer repeatedly:
Next, we need to hook up the start and stop buttons. Create one connection for each to the timer - hook up "clicked" to the start and stop actions respectively:
Now use the Test menu option. The UI should come up. Enter 1000 (this is milliseconds) in the input field, and then hit the start button. You should get a tone if you have it all set up properly.
That just about wraps it up - version this off in ENVY so you can continue with it later - you've just hooked up your visual and non-visual parts in VA Smalltalk.
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
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