CSCI 1321 (Principles of Algorithm Design II), Spring 2010:
Homework 6

Credit

Design 20 points; code 40 points.

Overview

At this point your game should be fairly close to being playable; most of the logic for making things move around and interact should be in place. In this homework, you will add GUI-related features to your game. Not all games will need similar functionality, but I want you to add features to meet the following two requirements.

First, you need something that displays information that changes as the game runs. Most people will do this by adding a ``game status panel'' to the game. (If this won't work for you, ask me about alternatives.) You add a game status panel by having getGameStatusPanel in your player class return something other than null for at least one value of the input variable.

Second, you need something that interacts with a human user, either the person playing the game or the person developing it, in some way other than by using the keyboard and mouse listeners in your player class. You have several options here; choose at least one that makes sense for your game:

• Add an ``edit properties'' panel to at least one of your game entity, block, or screen classes. These panels are accessed by the screen editor when you select one of the ``Properties'' choices from the ``Edit Left'' or ``Edit Right'' menu. You can use these panels to edit anything about your classes that should be different for different instances -- the speed of an enemy, for example. You add an ``edit properties'' panel to a class by having its editPropertiesPanel return something other than null.

• Add a game status panel that gets and processes input from the person playing the game. For example, you could have a button or text box that allows the user to change how fast the player moves, or how smart the enemies are. You do this as described above (for game status panels displaying status information).

• Add items to the game's menu bar or to the ``File'' menu that when selected do something that requires additional user input. For example, you could have a menu item that pops up a dialog box that asks how fast the player should move. You do this by adding to the code in your game setup class that defines the existing menu bar.

Design

The design for this assignment will include descriptions of any new classes you will write (maybe none) and revised descriptions of classes you modify.

Step-by-step instructions

• As with previous assignments, create a new Eclipse project for this assignment and copy into it the package from the previous assignment.

• Edit the classes you wrote for previous assignments, or create new ones, to implement the functionality described above. For this step, unless you're writing new classes you just have to change the comments to describe what you plan to do.

• When you're happy with your design, generate HTML documentation for your project as described in the Project Description and check that it's okay using a browser.

• Turn in your design by sending me mail telling me it's ready to be graded. Please use a subject line such as ``csci 1321 design 6''.

  (For this assignment, you could help me by telling me in this e-mail which classes you plan to change.)

Code

The purpose of this assignment is to give you some experience writing code for a GUI. As described above, you need to add code to do two things: display some sort of status information that changes as the game runs, and get input from the user.

Displaying status information

You will display status information by writing code in your player class to create one or more game status panels. Note that your player can return four separate panels, but you only have to use one. (Of course you can use more if you like.) This panel should display relevant information about the game in some reasonably appealing format. The framework calls your getGameStatusPanel four times with different values of the input parameter (north, south, east, and west). Your code should compare this input parameter to the four constants (NORTH_PANEL, etc.) and return null if you don't want to add a status panel in that direction and a Container (usually a JPanel is a good choice) if you do. In addition to building and returning the panel in getGameStatusPanel, you need to write code that will update the panel depending on what happens in the game. So if you display a score, it needs to be changed when the player does something that increases the score. The same is true for any other pieces of information that you display that are altered during the course of the game.

Getting input from the user

In addition to the game status panel, you need to make something that takes input from the user and makes some change based on it. As described earlier, you have several choices.

• Add an ``edit properties'' panel to at least one of your game entity, block, or screen classes. You do this by having its editPropertiesPanel return something other than null. Usually a JPanel is a good choice. It can contain buttons, text fields, or whatever you need to get the input you want.

• Add something to a game status panel that gets and processes input from the person playing the game. Again you could use buttons, text fields, etc. Notice that after getting input from a game status panel you need to restore focus to the main game panel. Details on request.

• Add items to the game's menu bar or to the ``File'' menu that when selected do something that requires additional user input. You do this by adding to the code in your game setup class that defines the existing menu bar. The existing code should give you an idea of how this works, or check the Java library API.

General tips

To help you debug, in the class in which you write one of these panels you can define a main method that creates a JFrame, adds your panel to it, and displays it.

The Java GUI libraries are quite extensive, and we only had time in class to cover a few basic classes. The Java library API at Sun's Web site covers everything, though, and many classes point to tutorials that can be very helpful. There are also several GUI examples linked from the ``Sample programs'' page.

Step-by-step instructions

• In the project you created in the design phase, fill in code for the classes you created or revised in the design phase to make them behave as you described. You can also continue to fill in things you haven't done in previous steps -- additional types of blocks and entities, interactions among game elements, etc.

• Revise and debug until you're happy with how your code compiles and executes.

• Generate HTML documentation for your project as described in the Project Description.

• Turn in your code by sending me mail with all of the files I need to compile and run your game as attachments. This includes all (.java files), any file(s) created using the screen editor, and any file(s) containing images. All of these files will probably be in the same directory containing your Eclipse project (same name as the project, in your Eclipse workspace directory), unless you put them somewhere else. You don't need to send me .class files or the JAR file, but if it's simplest for you just to send me all the files in the directory for your Eclipse project, do that. It's better to send a bit too much than not enough!

  The ``General requirements'' section of the Project description has more suggestions about how to send me the needed files.

  Please use a subject line such as ``csci 1321 code 6''.

Files and links

• The JAR file for this assignment, PAD2S10Assn6.jar. (This JAR file is essentially the same as the one for Homework 5, included again here for completeness.)

• Project Description.

• Project API (Lewis game framework).

• Java library API.

• Help for Dr. Lewis's screen editor program. Instructions for starting the program can be found under ``Project tools'' near the end of the Project Description.

• Help for Dr. Lewis's image editor program. Instructions for starting the program can be found under ``Project tools'' near the end of the Project Description. This is a nice program for creating images for your blocks and entities, but if you have another favorite tool, you can probably use that. Ask me for details about loading images from files.