1.3 The Editor Window

The Editor window is one of the three windows which is created when you run Boa Constructor. If you close the Editor Window, you can re-open it from the Palette Window using the  Button.

When it is opened the Editor provides two pages, the Shell page and the Explorer page. You can now open a source file into the Editor. There are several methods for opening a source file in Boa Constructors editor.


Editor - source view


When a source file is opened, the editor creates a new page for the module. Within that page, the editor creates another notebook to provide alternative views of the file, this depends on the type of file.  In this case we show an "App1" and "Frame1", for the Frame1 file three views are shown, 'Source', 'Explore' and 'Events', should you look at the "App1" file you would see 'Application', 'Source' and 'Explore' views.

Note: The "*" on the "App1" and "Frame1" tab indicate that changes have been made which are not saved.

The Source View (seen above) shows the source code and allows you to change the source code, unless it has a "blueish" background which indicates that the Frame Designer is open/active for this file.


Editor - Explore view


The Explore View provides a tree view of the module and the icons shown indicate the following:

Icon - Class Classes
Icon - Method Methods
Icon - Function Functions
Icon - Event Events
Icon - Global Global

The 'Explore' Pane shows a Class based view of your source. The methods and attributes of each class in the source are displayed. You can double-click the mouse left button on an attribute or method, and the 'Source' view will display the definition/source code for that item.


Editor - Event view


The 'Events' Pane shows a Control based view of the Events you defined using Boa's Inspector.  Manually added events outside the Boa generated code will not show here.

Additional views can be opened through the Editor/Views menu, this includes such views as "Application ToDo", "Application Documentation", "UML" etc, some views will only be available for certain file types.

The 'Views' menu in the editor provides other views on the source. These are Hierarchy, Documentation, ToDo, Application ToDo, Imports, UML, CVS conflicts, Readme.txt, Changes.txt, Todo.txt, Bugs.txt.

The icons available on the Editor window toolbar for a wxFrame file are:

Note: The icons available on this toolbar change depending on the active file.

Editor toolbar - File icons

The icons above allow you to open, close, save, save-as files and Browse forward/backward icons allow you to jump to marked possitions (CTRL-M).

Editor toolbar - Run icons

The icons above let you run the application, run the module or debug the application.

Editor toolbar - source icons

The icons above let you profile the module, check the source, or start the frame designer (sometimes also refered to as GUI Editor).

Editor toolbar - copypaste Icons

The icons above let you Refresh the screen, Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy and Paste.

Editor toolbar - Search icons

The icons above let you Find/Replace, Find again, and print the source.

Editor toolbar - Other icons

The icons above let you run to the cursor (in debugger), toggle a breakpoint (you can also use F5), insert module information (Author name etc, this can be customized, see Module Info), and help.

Some helpfull short-cuts: