abctclgui — a graphical front end for ABCTcl
abctclgui facilitates controlling ABC. The output of multiple ABC commands can be viewed simultaneously. Commands can be assembled interactively. The application uses the following windows:
Controls which windows will be displayed. Records ABC status (initializing, busy, ready...). Also has controls for reading and writing circuit descriptions to and from ABC. Closing this window causes the application to exit.
Serves for interactive command assembly. Contain a list of ABC commands, translates them to Tcl calls of ABCTcl and collects arguments to the command. Instead of ABCTcl calls, an arbitrary Tcl/Tk command can be entered. Selects an output window where the output of ABC will be displayed.
Displays the result of a command, usually an ABCTcl call. The output can be filtered to hide null values or the raw output of ABC. The last command issued is stored, displayed and can be rerun.
Standard input, output and error output of the application. On Unix systems, the terminal window where abctclgui has been called serves this purpose. On Windows, there is a special text window similar to the command line console.
The appearance of the application, i. e. the presence and size of its windows
is stored in a configuration file named abctclgui.conf.tcl. On exit,
the application asks the user whether this file shall be stored in the current
directory. On startup, the following locations are searched, until the file is found:
Current directory.
If the environment variable HOME is set to a non-empty value,
the directory named by it (the user's home directory).
The directory where abctclgui.tcl
has been installed.
As abctclgui uses the ABCTcl procedure collection, it also
indirectly uses abctcl.conf.tcl file.
(Usability problem) The buttons and in the main window belong to the command window.
(Usability problem) The buttons and in the main window shall be labeled in ABC parlance, i.e. and .
(Usability problem) Details of the generated Tcl command in the command window are irrelevant for the user. The text field shall not permit to modify the result variable. On the other hand, no field for parameters is provided.
(Usability problem) No means to obtain help for the selected command is provided, although ABC has a unified mechanism for that.
(Usability problem) No means for timeout setting is provided.
(Usability problem) Error information returned from an ABCTcl command is displayed only as an item in the result array. Shall be displayed separately.
(Consistency problem) On Unix systems, it is customary to hide configuration files by prepending a dot to the name. abctclgui does not do so.
(Functionality problem) When saving the configuration file, a file chooser dialog would be expected. Also, Load configuratiuon and Save configuration with file choosers would permit multiple stored configurations.