
COMPOSER(help)               Khoros                COMPOSER(help)

     COMPOSER -- Introduction

     Composer is a tool for interactively creating and maintain-
     ing a data processing (vroutine) program in the Khoros
     environment.  It provides a interactive graphical user
     interface to the User Interface Specification (UIS) file and
     Program Specification (PS) file.  Composer also provides an
     interface to the code generator tool set ghostwriter, ghos-
     treader and ghostcheck as well as the installation script
     kinstall.

     Composer was designed to be used by someone writing vroutine
     programs such as those in the vipl, num_analysis,
     remote_gis, dspl or file_format source directories.  Com-
     poser is not ver useful for writing interactive X Windows
     aplications (xvroutines).  The resulting programs will be
     compliant with the Khoros command line user interface as
     well as be compatible with the cantata visual language.
     There is no need to recompile or modify cantata code to
     include new routines in the cantata user interface.  All
     that you need to do is create a new pane file and reference
     it from within the cantata UIS form file. When you are first
     prototyping the pane file, you can read it into cantata via
     the workspace options.  For more information on doing this,
     read the Khoros Manual Volume II, Chapter 1, "Writing Pro-
     grams".

     From the master form of composer you can either edit a User
     Interface Specification (UIS) file by selecting the "UI
     Spec" button, edit a Program Specification (PS) file by
     selecting the "Program" button, or access the code generat-
     ing tools by selecting the "Tools" button. A demo of Com-
     poser can be executed by running

          % composer -jp $KHOROS_HOME/repos/journals/composer.jp.

     Editing a UIS File

     A UIS file is an ASCII file that contains information neces-
     sary to generate both a command line user interface and a
     graphical form/menu interface.  The UIS file includes a sin-
     gle line of a specific syntax for each computer/user
     interaction.  This file can be edited with any text editor
     once you are familiar with the syntax.  But as a new user,
     you will find quicker success in creating and editing UIS
     files if you use composer.  Composer can be thought of a
     syntax sensitive user interface editor, in other words, a
     user interactively creates a UIS file that must be syntacti-
     cally correct.

     More documentation on UIS files can be found in Khoros
     Manual Volume II, Chapter 2.  As is explained in this refer-
     enced document, Khoros graphical user interfaces are com-
     posed of a master form, subforms and panes.  Composer only
     allows you to edit single pane specifications.  This type of
     pane specification is sufficient to generate a command line
     user interface for a vroutine program and allow you to
     incorporate this routine into cantata. More extensive edit-
     ing of UIS files is provided by the preview application,
     Khoros Manual Volume II, Chapter 3.

     Editing a PS File

     A PS file is an ASCII file that contains code segments and
     documentation necessary to generate 100% of a vroutine pro-
     gram.  The PS file must be accompanied by a UIS file.  The
     PS file includes 24 specific fields of information that are
     used to generate both code and documentation.  When you are
     writing a new program, the PS file encourages you to abide
     by KHOROS coding conventions.  The PS file is invaluable in
     maintaining code.  Composer provides you with a more
     interactive method of editing the PS file.

     More documentation on PS files can be found in Khoros Manual
     Volume II, Chapter 5, "Ghost Routines" and Chapter 1, "Writ-
     ing Programs".  Composer allows you to edit one field of the
     PS file at a time.  When you become familiar with the begin
     keys and end keys that delimit the various fields in the PS
     file, you may wish to use your favorite text editor instead
     of composer.

     Programming Tools

     The specification files, UIS and PS, are accompanied by pro-
     gram code generators ghostwriter and conductor.  The ghost
     tool set are the only programs accessed from with in com-
     poser; conductor is for generating X Windows user inter-
     faces.  The ghost tool set allows you to check the status of
     a program, generate code and maintain code.  After a program
     is generated, it can be compiled using the automatically
     generated make files and then installed using the kinstall
     program.  Kinstall assumes that you have created a toolbox
     for your program to be installed into.

     More documentation on these tools can be found in Khoros
     Manual Volume II, Chapter 5, "Ghost Routines", the manual
     pages for kinstall(1), ghostreader(1), ghostwriter(1),
     ghostcheck(1), imkmf(1), makemake(1), Khoros Manual Volume
     II, Chapter 1, "Writing Programs", and Khoros Manual Volume
     II, Chapter 9, "Configuration Management".  When you become
     more familiar with the Khoros environment, you may wish to
     run these various commands from the command line.  Composer
     basically gives you simplified access to these tools.

     Copyright 1992, University of New Mexico. All rights
     reserved.

Khoros                    Release: 1.0                          1

