1 Introduction

P-Coder is a support tool to assist in learning some of the basic principles in programming. While it has a bias towards Java, it could equally be applied to most (good) programming languages.

The “P” in P-Coder stands for “Pseudo”. Pseudocode is a commonly used word to describe how a program actually works before you write down all the instructions in the actual programming language. It is thus an intermediate stage between the written/spoken descriptions of what the program is required to do, and the final code that you can compile then execute on the computer.

P-Coder is a tool to help you make the transition from a description of the computational task to achieving an operational program. This intermediate step is quite important, and if it is done well many problems (that can crop up in programming) might be avoided and much time saved. The main goals of using a pseudocode step is to make certain you better understand what the computational task is all about, and to design a solution to it that has a good chance of working.

P-Coder is a graphical design tool that help you visualize how your program should/can work and thus help you achieve a better understanding of how to do programming (well). P-Coder provides support for a full range of the essential programming concepts that will enable you to do your first programming exercises. P-Coder is not intended to be a professional programming tool – there are many others that are better designed for that purpose – but they can be difficult to learn to use.

This User Guide does not contain the full operational description of P-Coder, this is described elsewhere (in the Instructor Guide).

2 Overview

2.1 Starting P-Coder

P-Coder is started from the shortcut icon that you will find on the desktop, or in the Start menu, of your computer. It looks like this:

Figure 1: The P-Coder Icon

The Designer View is the primary user interface for the program design process; it looks like that shown in the following diagram.

Figure 2: The main window of P-Coder

The P-Coder Designer consists of a graphical display area and a set of node icon buttons in on the left side. Each of these corresponds to a node type that can be inserted into the program. Note that a number of these buttons are disabled (for the moment) as these correspond to nodes that are automatically inserted into the model (e.g: Class Data, Then and Default nodes; as they are required for their respective parent nodes).

The text field at the bottom of the window will show messages as you use the program.

2.2 Command Options

Most commonly used operations are available from the toolbar across the top part of the window, these are:

Toolbar Icon	Operation
	Opens a P-Coder model (xml) file
	Saves the current model
	Prints the current model
	Open the Find tool
	Opens the Module view with a selected P-Coder model
	Opens the Code View
	Opens the Class View
	Opens the Object View
	Terminates the program (bottom left of window)

These and other command options are available from the menu bar options, as follows:

Menu	Option	Action
File	Load	Loads a P-Coder model from disk
	New ► Program	Creates a new P-Coder model from a Program node.
	New ► Package	Creates a new P-Coder model from a Package node.
	New ► Class	Creates a new P-Coder model from a Class node.
	New ► Method	Creates a new P-Coder model from a Method node.
	Import	Imports an existing Source file to create a skeleton model
	Save	Saves the current model
	Save As…	Saves the current model to a new file name
	Page Setup	Show the page setup dialog to set page and printer properties.
	Print	Prints the current model
	Quit	Terminates the program
Node	Enable-Disable Class Bar	Enables-Disables the Class highlight bar
	Open All	Opens all nodes in model
	Open Selected	Opens those nodes that are currently selected
	Close All	Closes all nodes in model
	Close Selected	Closes those nodes that are currently selected
	View Selector	Shows View Selector dialog
	Reset All Nodes	De-selects all nodes
	Delete Selected Nodes	Deletes all currently selected nodes.
View	Java Code View	Shows the Code View
	Module View	Requests a module to load, then displays it in the Module View
	Class View	Shows the Class View
	Object View	Shows the Object View
	Find	Search for text in model
Help	About	Shows the about dialog
	Credits	Contributors to P-Coder
	Enter userID	Show the userID dialog if you are required to enter or change your userID.
	Enable/Disable Tool Tips	Enables/disables tool tips on tool bar icons.
	Look & Feel ► Option	List of look and feel options for current installation (e.g. Windows, Motif, Metal)

2.3 Node Types

In P-Coder, the program design is composed of nodes, of different type, connected in a tree-like diagram. Each node represents a particular computational step or process.

Node Icon

Formal Name

Description