Subsections


Menu commands


File menu

New Window (Ctrl+N): Opens a new animation window.

Open (Ctrl+O): Opens a new data structure. Java class files, saved Matrix animations and text files containing the string representation of a data structure can be opened. MatrixPro knows how to visualize saved animations and strings automatically, but Java classes must implement the visualization interfaces correctly. Appendix A describes the text file formats as well as an extended text file format. Animations are saved as serialized Java objects, so there will be problems if an object's class has changed after it was saved. Customizations to the visualization are not saved with the serialized animations.

Open recent: Opens one of the recently opened or saved files.

Save As...: Saves the data structures either as Serialization or ASCII. The type can be set from the Files of Type drop-down list.

Close (Ctrl+W): Closes the current window; if there is only one window, this is the same as Exit.

Clear: Clears the current active structure panel.

Export...: Exports the current animation or the view of one step of the animation in one of the formats selected from Files of Type. These are described in Appendix B.

Page Setup...: Opens the page setup dialog for printers.

Print...: Prints the current window.

Print animation...: Prints the entire animation, each step on its own page.

Exit: Exits the program.

Edit menu

Font: Changes the font used by visualizations.

Font size: Changes the font size used by visualizations.

Show: Selects the visible user interface components: either the toolbar including the animator or only the animator.

Copy (Ctrl-C): Copies the selected structure to the clipboard.

Cut (Ctrl-X): Copies the selected structure to the clipboard and then deletes the original structure.

Paste (Ctrl-V): Pastes the structure from the clipboard. This calls the insert routine of the selected structure, so the behaviour depends on the implementation of that structure. Note that the pasted structure and the original structure are both visualizations of the same structure, so modifications done to one change the other.

Paste as duplicate: Pastes the structure from the clipboard as a new visual structure; only whole structures can be pasted this way, not keys or nodes. A structure can be selected by clicking on its title bar. Changes in the new visualization affects the original and vice versa.

Delete: Deletes the selected structure. Again, the effect depends on the underlying structures.

Undo: Undoes the last user interface operation. Not all operations can be undone and visualization customizations such as rotations are lost.

Redo: Redoes the last undone user interface operation. Visualization customizations are lost.

Structures menu

The Structures menu is used to instantiate the data structures built into MatrixPro. For more information about the different structures, see Section 7.

Options menu

The options menu contains special commands for simulation purposes

Update references: Updates the references between elements and repaints the visualized data structures. You can change several references at a time by moving them to point to the desired target. The underlying structure (and thus, the visualization) is not updated until the update references operation is called, as described in Section 4.4.

Swap: Changes the semantics of drag and drop. The default semantics is Insert which moves an element from the source location to the destination but does not change the original source structure. The semantics of Swap cause the source and target elements to be swapped. Swap is intended for use on keys in arrays and FDTs.

Preferences..: This opens a dialog with two tabbed panes.

Toolbar
Customizes the toolbar (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Customizing the toolbar.
A component can be hidden by selecting it from the list of visible components and clicking Hide, and a hidden component can be made visible by selecting it and clicking Show. Components can be moved up or down in the toolbar by selecting them and clicking Move up or Move down. Add opens a dialog for adding a component; you have to select its class file.

Layout
Customizes the positions and insets of the visualizations.

The values that can be set for each visualization are:

Animator menu

The Animator menu contains commands to control and modify the animator. In addition to menu equivalents of the buttons on the animator, there are two additional selections:

Set beginning here: Sets the current state to be the beginning of the animation. The previous states can no longer be reached.

Set end here: Sets the current state to be the end of the animation. The following states can no longer be reached.

Exercises menu

This menu contains a large number of algorithms and data structures, categorized in submenus. Selecting one of them causes a new window to be displayed containing a random instance of an exercise for that topic. On the left a panel appears with instructions on the exercise, while on the right a structure panel is initialized.

For example, select Exercises/Basic algorithms/Binary search. The structure panel is initialized with an array of keys and an empty linked list; the instruction panel contains the value to search for, and the instructions are to drag the visited keys from the array to the linked list. When you have finished select actions from the Exercise menu:

Reset: Resets the exercise to a new instance.

Model answer: Displays an animation of the correct answer to the exercise.

Grade my solution: Displays a frame with the number of correct steps in the solution.

Help menu

Help: Displays information about where to find MatrixPro User's manual and some tutorials.

About: Displays the copyright notice and the version.


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