Getting Started with Borland
Navigating the Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

The IDE will open with:

  • a Menu of controls
  • Form1 (Window)
  • Unit1.cpp (Source code)
  • Object Inspector

The Object Inspector allows you to change the attributes of any object (component). The first object shown is Form1.

Click on the Properties tab. You can set its NAME (what it is called in the program), its CAPTION (the label that the user sees), its COLOR, HEIGHT, WIDTH, TOP and BOTTOM. You can resize the form by dragging it. The properties will change reflecting what you've done. You can also change a components properties on the fly inside your program. We'll do that later.

Click on the Events tab. You can tell the form what to do when the mouse moves over it (OnMouseMove), when the mouse is clicked (OnMouseDown) and when it is rendered on the screen (OnPaint).

An object (component) also has Methods. These are things that it can do. We will look at these later.

You might think of a component as an agent with a Sense, Think and Act (STA) architecture:

  • Events = Sense
  • Properties = Think
  • Events = Act

We'll leave the question of what "thinking" is until later. Some researchers define it as whatever mediates between sensing and acting.

There are hundreds of components included in the Borland IDE. We will only use a few. Click on the "Standard" tab. There you will see the label, button and the edit box. Slowly pause your cursor on each one. Their names will appear.
Click on the "Additional" tab. There you will see some geometric shapes and a pie chart. Pause your cursor over each one to get an idea of what they do.
Click on the "Win32" tab. You will see another familiar component here: the trackbar.

Click on the "System" tab. It gives you access to the system clock and provides you with a PaintBox component which is useful for creating visualizations.

Click on the "Samples" tab and explore some useful graphing components.

The "Dialogs" tab gives you components for reading and writing data files.

 

We have added some components at the rightmost tabs:

  • Ziegler (knobs, dials, meters, charts and displays).
    A demonstration program is available. Click the image.
  • OpenGL (for 3D visulization and exploration of data spaces).
Click on a Button component and then click anywhere on Form1. It will be dropped on the form and selected (meaning that it has square handles at its sides) by default. Any component that is selected will also appear in the Object Inspector.

Make sure the Properties tab in the Object Inspector has been chosen.

Notice that the button's Name, by default, is "Button1". This is it name as it is known to the program code. We have no need to change its name. Leave it as it is.

Notice that the button's Caption is, by default, the same as its Name. The Caption is simply the label on the button. The program pays no attention to it. Only the user sees it and so it's useful to give it a Caption that will indicate its function. Change the Caption to "Run".

Now let's write some code to tell the program what to do when the button is clicked. Double-lick the button, or double-lick the "OnClick" box on the Events tab of the Object Inspector. They both accomplish the same end. An "event handler" will be automatically written into your Unit1.cpp file for you. All you need to do is fill it in with something to be done.

Let's have it fill an array with all the squares of the numbers from 0 to 19. Type in the code yourself. We also have to tell the program that it is an array of 20 integers. Type in exactly what you see in the image at the right.

Let's run the Windows application that you've built. Click on the green "run" arrow to compile the project and run. Notice that there is also a blue "pause" button alongside.

The application should look like this. You can minimize, maximize and close the application. If you press the Run button the program that you've written will run, but you won't see any evidence of it. Press it, see that nothing happens, then close the application by pressing the "X".

Let's look at a neat feature of the IDE that lets you probe what is going on inside your program. Press the green "run" arrow again and DO NOT click the Run button that you created. Now press "pause" instead.
An ugly debugging window will pop up. We won't need it now so just close it. However, we are still in debugging mode.

Scroll up in your Unit1.cpp file until you see the name of a variable you want to probe. Place your cursor over the word "array" but don't click it. The current values of that variable array will pop up in a yellow window. We can see that the array is full of zeros. That's the way it should be, because we never pressed the Run button that would execute the code.

Slide the cursor over "i" and see what the popup window says.

Press the green "run" arrow to resume the program, then press the black "X" to close it.

This time let's see if the probe can show us what is in the array after we press the Run button we created.

Press the green "run" arrow. Now press the "Run" button we created. Now pause the program, close the CPU window and slide your cursor over the variable "array". You should see the current values in the array.

This method is extremely useful in debugging your program.