The Eloquence Development Environment

The Application Window

This document explains the basic components of the Eloquence Development environment. Most things should be familiar to you, if you have worked with Windows programs before.

The image below shows the Application Window in a typical situation. Please click on the image to have a look at the image at full size.

The image consists of the following components:

The Application window
The Menubar
The Toolbar
The Browse toolwindow
The Statusbar
An open document
An iconized document

The remaining document provides a detailed description of each element.

The Application window

The Application Window provides a framework for the whole application. All application windows are normally contained in the Application windows. It also contains the Application Menu Bar and Status Bar.

Within the Application window, one childwindow is the active window (it has the keyboard focus). The active window is usually displayed with an enhanced title bar (as defined by your Windows configuration) and may obscure other childwindows. The active childwindow takes over global application ressources, which are shared by all application windows such as the TitleBar, the MenuBar and the StatusBar.

The Application TitleBar

The Application TitleBar reflects the TitleBar of the active ChildWindow.

It consists of the following components:

The application icon
The application title
The title of the active child window
An asterisk indicates, that the active child window has been modified.

The Menubar

The actual contents of the the Menubar depends on the active child window. In the Windows MDI model, the topmost child window provides the active Menubar for the application.

The Menubar consists of Menu topics ("menu panes") which logically group the available options. The following menu panes are always available:

File This menu pane provides access to functions affecting entire files like File New, File Open, Print Setup and the list of last recently accessed files. Please refer to the File Management document for more information.
View This menu pane provides access to the tool windows.
Program This menu pane provides access to the program development and debugging functions.
Window This menu pane provides access to window layout functions and the list of child windows.
Help This menu pane provides access to the online help.

File	This menu pane provides access to functions affecting entire files like File New, File Open, Print Setup and the list of last recently accessed files. Please refer to the File Management document for more information.
View	This menu pane provides access to the tool windows.
Program	This menu pane provides access to the program development and debugging functions.
Window	This menu pane provides access to window layout functions and the list of child windows.
Help	This menu pane provides access to the online help.

The Application Statusbar

While the actual layout of the the StatusBar depends on the active child window the following image reflects a typical situation:

The StatusBar contains of the following elements:

The two leftmost elements reflect the cursor position of the active child window. This element only available when a text window is on top. When it is visible, you can set the cursor position in the associated window by overwriting the value and pressing the Return key.

The next three elements reflect the keyboard status of the topmost child window. It contains the following indicators:

OVR	This is visible, when the active window is in Overwrite mode. When not visible, the default imput mode (usually insert mode) is used.
CAP	This is visible, when the SHIFT LOCK keyboard mode is active. (The acronym actually refers to CAPS LOCK - Capitals Lock - which is different as it only affects the alpha keys. But CAPS Lock is in common use in the Windows environment.)
NUM	This is visible, when the NUM LOCK keyboard mode is active.

The color marker indicates an active network connection. When the marker is Yellow, the network connection is is use (data are transmitted or a response is expected). When the marker is Green, the network connection is idle, but still connected. When the network connection times out, the indicator disappears.
The rightmost field contains the word "RUN" when a debugging session is active.

Toolbars

Toolbars are intended to provide accelerated access to common used function. Instead of navigating through the menu bar, you can execute them with a single mouse click. They provide a graphical representation of the associated function.
The toolbar actually consists of toolbar windows which contain the actual toolbar buttons. Each toolbar window can be

hidden or visible
placed in a toolbar area anywhere at the border of the Application window.
made a separate window ("undocked")

The image below shows the (undocked) Edit Toolbar window as an example.

The Eloquence Development Environment provides the following Toolbar windows:

File File related functions, usually found in the File menu pane.
Edit Editing functions, usually found in the Edit menu pane.
Attributes Program character attributes, such as inverse or underlined.
View View functions, usually found in the View menu pane.
Program Program development functions, usually found in the Program menu pane.
Window Window geometry functions, usually found in the Window menu pane.

File	File related functions, usually found in the File menu pane.
Edit	Editing functions, usually found in the Edit menu pane.
Attributes	Program character attributes, such as inverse or underlined.
View	View functions, usually found in the View menu pane.
Program	Program development functions, usually found in the Program menu pane.
Window	Window geometry functions, usually found in the Window menu pane.

The Browse Toolwindow

The Browser Toolwindow is the most fundamental and visible one of a set of Toolwindows which are included in Eloquence Development Environment. It serves a dual purpose:

When the Help tab is selected, it provides access to the available online help.
When the Files tab is selected, it reflects the list of editor windows. With program files it additionally displays the program structure.

If the Browse Toolwindow is invisible, you can make it visible by selecting the Browse Menu item form the View menu pane or pressing the associated accelerator key ALT+1.

The mode can be switched by selecting the corresponding tab at the lower end of the Browse Toolwindow.

The Documentation Browser

By switching into Documentation mode, you can browse the available online documentation. The documentation list is not limited to the static Eloquence documentation, you can easily add you own documentation to this list and it will be part of the Development Environment.

The Source Browser

All files loaded into an editor window have a corresponding entry in the Browse Toolwindow - it's symbolized by a folder symbol. When an editor window holds a Eloquence Program, you can open the folder (this is symbolized by the leading + symbol) and the list of program segments becomes visible.

Double clicking on the folder symbol will bring the associated client window on top. Double clicking on a segment name will additionally position the cursor at the beginning of that section. Recompiling a program will update its section list. This is a real live saver if you ever had to jump between different segments (in even different files) while editing a program.