As pyFormex is still in its infancy, the GUI is subject to frequent changes and it would make no sense to cover here every single aspect of it. Rather we will describe the most important functions, so that users can quickly get used to working with pyFormex. Also we will present some of the more obscure features that users may not expect but yet might be very useful.
The pyFormex window (figure 4.1) comprises 5 parts. From top to bottom these are:
Many of these parts look and work in a rather familiar way. The menu bar gives access to most of the pyFormex GUI features through a series of pull-down menus. The most import functions are described in following sections.
The toolbar contains a series of buttons that trigger actions when clicked upon. This provides an easier access to some frequently used functions, mainly for changing the viewing parameters.
The canvas is a drawing board where your pyFormex scripts can show the created geometrical structures and provide them with full 3D view and manipulation functions. This is obviously the most important part of the GUI, and even the main reason for having a GUI at all. However, the contents of the canvas is often mainly created by calling drawing functions from a script. This part of the GUI is therefore treated in full detail in a separate chapter.
In the message board pyFormex displays informative messages, requested results, possibly also errors and any text that your pyFormex script writes out.
The status bar shows the current status of the GUI. For now this only contains the filename of the current script and an indicator if this file has been recognized as a pyFormex script (happy face) or not (unhappy face).
Between the canvas and the message board is a splitter allowing resizing the parts of the window occupied by the canvas and message board. The mouse cursor changes to a vertical resizing symbol when you move over it. Just click on the splitter and move the mouse up or down to adjust the canvas/message board to your likings.
The pyFormex main window can be resized in the usual ways.