Introduction  Appetizer  Examples  Documentation  Applications  Work plan

Appetizer
(configurating Descartes)

This page will teach the reader how to create working applications with Descartes by modifying a given original application. This is the recommended procedure to create applications with Descartes.

Let us start with an example that uses several of the Descartes tools.

Click on the config button of this example and the configuration window of Descartes will pop out. At its center some html code appears. It is the html code needed to make the applet appear on the Web page. It is a particular call to the applet Descartes, with a particular configuration of its fourteen tools contained in the applet's parameters. At the top of the window, a language selection choice control appears, followed by four buttons with labels: <applet>, new, original and test and by a second choice control with sixteen options. These options are the fourteen Descartes tools plus <applet> and test, which have the same function as the buttons with such labels. This last choice control is called throughout this Web the tool selector.

The reader should select a tool on the tool selector, modify something and click on test . For example, he or she may choose EQUATIONS and modify the equations, or choose TEXTS and change the words, the colors and the position coordinates. The user will guess easily how to do all these changes. Clicking on the test button, the applet restarts adopting the new configuration so the changes made may be observed immediately on the screen. The reader is welcome to modify whatever he or she wishes. Don't be afraid to make mistakes! If something is wrong, just click refresh or reload on your browser, and the original configuration will come back.

This is how the user may modify given applications to produce new ones.

The new button creates a default configuration wich is almost empty. It has non-empty values only on the tools COLORS and SPACE. The button original recuperates the configuration defined on the Web page.

When a new configuration is ready, the user may copy the html code that appears on the configuration window and paste it on another Web page. In doing this, a new application is created. It will be the user's first Descartes application. An applet with the new configuration will appear on the page when it is opened with an internet browser. If the code is not pasted on some Web page, the new configuration will be lost.

The original configuration in not modified. If the user refreshes or reloads the Web page after no matter how many modifications were made, the original configuration will come back, unless some other configuration (applet call) was pasted on the page replacing the original one. The user may also recover the initial configuration by clicking on the original button on the configuration window.

The experience obtained in this excercise should be enough for the reader to create a variety of applications by modifying the examples and applications on this document.

However, in order to create new and original applications the user will need to learn the details and subtleties of all the Descartes tools, which may be consulted on the documentation of this Web.

Introduction  Appetizer  Examples  Documentation  Applications  Work plan                

	Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Aņo 2000