In this chapter we quickly walk through the
various components of the BlackAdder IDE. Once you have BlackAdder
installed, you can start it by typing ba at the
Unix shell prompt, or double-clicking the new icon on your
desktop. You'll be greeted by a stylish splash screen, followed by
the BlackAdder application window.
Note: Please keep in mind that this chapter
was written using the beta version of
BlackAdder. As a result, certain aspects of BlackAdder were not yet
in their final form. For instance, the toolbar icons are expected to
change.
BlackAdder and its ‘About'
dialog.
If, on the other hand, you are confronted by
a window telling you that the Python interpreter has died, you
will probably need to correctly set the path to the Python
interpreter executable (either python or
python.exe on Windows), as described in
the Section called Linux in Chapter 2.
Python has given the ghost.
However, if all is well, you can start
exploring your new development environment.
Menubar
The BlackAdder menubar combines
functionality for the editing of Python source code and the
creation of GUI forms.
The Tools,
Layout and Preview menus
contain commands for the creation of forms, while
Run is used to start and debug Python
scripts. File and Edit
have commands for both tasks.
You can hide or unhide various important
parts of BlackAdder with options from the
Window menu. These are the project Explorer,
the Property Editor, the Object Hierarchy window, the Traceback
viewer and the Python interpreter window.