The Alice Interface

The Alice Interface Startup Screen This is the screen that appears when you start the Alice software.

The Alice Interface Startup Screen Welcome to Alice! window It has a Welcome to Alice! dialog box, which appears over the standard Alice Interface.

The Alice Interface Welcome to Alice! Window Five tabs: Tutorial Recent Worlds Templates Examples Open a World The Welcome to Alice! Window has five tabs: Tutorial Recent Worlds Templates Examples Open a World

The Alice Interface Tutorial The Tutorials tab provides access to Alice’s built-in tutorials. Alice has a series of four short tutorials to help get you started using the system. They were designed by Dr. Caitlin Kelleher when she was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University. You can press the light blue Start the Tutorial button to view the tutorials from the beginning, or click one of the thumbnails to start a particular tutorial.

The Alice Interface Recent Worlds The Recent Worlds tab shows you the most recently used Alice worlds. You can double-click on a thumbnail or click a thumbnail and then the open button to open one of the worlds.

The Alice Interface Templates The Templates tab contains six blank templates that can be used to start a new Alice world. They are: dirt grass sand snow space water You can double-click a thumbnail, or click a thumbnail and then the open button to start a new world using on of the templates

The Alice Interface Examples The Examples tab contains seven example worlds included with the Alice software: Almost All About Alice amusmentPark flightSimulator lakeSkater lakeSkaterDemoStart LightDemo SnowLove They are designed to let you explore various features of the Alice software.

The Alice Interface Open a World The Open a World tab contains a windows-like interface that will allow you to navigate the directories on your computer to find and open existing Alice worlds. Alice 2.0 worlds end with the extension .a2w.

The Alice Interface Five Main Areas Object tree Details area World window Editor area Events area The Alice interface has five main work areas : Object tree Details area World window Editor area Events area

The Alice Interface Five Main Areas Object tree The Object tree shows the objects in the current Alice world organized as a tree of tiles, with a tile for each object.

The Alice Interface Five Main Areas Details area The Details area has tabs to show properties, methods and functions for the currently selected Alice object. Properties contain information about an object, such as its color and position in the world. Methods are programs that manipulate an object, such as the method to make an IceSkater turn. A function is a method that returns a value, such as the distance between two objects.

The Alice Interface Five Main Areas World window The World window contains a view of the current Alice world. There is a set of blue arrows below the window to control the Alice camera, which provides you with the view in the window. There is also a large green ADD OBJECTS button, which is used to enter the Scene Editor Mode, in which objects can be added to the world.

The Alice Interface Five Main Areas Editor area The Editor area is the largest area of the Alice interface Here, methods are assembled and edited by clicking and dragging tiles from other parts of the interface. The bottom of the Editor area has a row of logic and control tiles that can be used to put branching, looping, and other logical structures into the algorithms that will make up an object’s methods. Most of the time that you spend working with Alice will be spent using the Editor area.

The Alice Interface Five Main Areas Events area The Events area shows existing events and is used to create new events. An event consists of a condition, called an event trigger, and the name of a method, called an event handler. Whenever the event trigger occurs, the event handler is called into action. For example, you might want the sound of a splash to occur if an ice skater falls through the ice. Some events, such as causing a method to run when a key is pressed, provide user interaction for an Alice world. Events are covered in detail in Chapter 3.

The Alice Interface Alice Tools for Deleting and Copying Trash Can Clipboard There are two tools that can be used for deleting and copying elements of an Alice world – the Trash Can and the Clipboard.

The Alice Interface Alice Tools for Deleting and Copying Trash Can Items such as objects from the Object tree or instruction tiles in the Editor area can be deleted by dragging them to the Trash Can. You can also right-click on an object or tile, and select delete from the menu that appears.

The Alice Interface Alice Tools for Deleting and Copying Clipboard An Object or instruction tile can be copied by dragging it to the Clipboard and then dragging a copy from the Clipboard to the new location. You can also duplicate a method tile by right-clicking it and selecting make copy from the menu that appears, but this does not work with Alice objects. It is possible to have more than one clipboard. The number of clipboards is an option that can be set on Alice’s Preferences menu, which we see later.

The Alice Interface Alice Editing Buttons Undo Redo The Undo and Redo buttons can be used anytime you are working on an Alice world to undo or redo your previous actions, just like the undo and redo features in most Windows software, such as Microsoft Word. The Alice system will remember almost every action since you opened or started the current Alice world, so Undo can be used on a long series of actions. The Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y keyboard shortcuts also can be used for Undo and Redo.

The Alice Interface Alice Editing Buttons Undo The Undo button will undo the last change you made while working on an Alice world. The Ctrl-Z keyboard shortcut has the same effect as the Undo button.

The Alice Interface Alice Editing Buttons Redo The effects of the Undo button can be reversed by using the Redo button. The Ctrl-Y keyboard shortcut has the same effect as the Redo button.

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar File Edit Tools Help

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar File menu

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar Edit menu

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar Edit menu

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar Tools menu

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar Tools menu

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar Tools menu

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar Help menu

The Alice Interface Alice Menu Bar Help menu