Class 23: Text Composition Lab

Held: Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Summary: Today we ground our understanding of the text composition classes in some simple laboratory exercises.

Related Pages:

• EBoard.
• Sample Code.

Overview:

• Review.
• New code.
• Informal lab.

Introduction

• What I did since yesterday:
  • Made TextLine implement TextBlock
  • Added atWidth to TextLine
  • Wrote all of VerticallyCompose
  • Wrote most of HorizontallyCompose
  • Wrote a simple tester (TestText)
• Observation: We no longer need SimpleTextBlock, since the VerticallyCompose can do it.

Informal Lab

• What you need to do to prepare:
  • Make a rebelsky directory in your CS152 directory
  • Make a text directory in your rebelsky directory
  • Copy my HorizontallyCompose.java to that directory.
  • Copy my TestText.java to that directory.
  • Ensure that CS152 appears before my Examples directory on your classpath
• Exercise 1: Try building an interesting picture using the tools at your disposal.
• Exercise 2: HorizontallyCompose doesn't work correctly if the thing at the left has fewer lines than the thing at the right. Fix!
• Exercise 3: Write and test a new class, Center, whose constructor takes two parameters: the textblock to center and a desired width.
• Exercsie 4: Design your own new class for this library.