BDE2JAVA Project

Postscript Printing Utility

Report of the subproject of 96f523 bde2java project

Project Goal:

This project was completed as a part of the 96f523 bde2java team project involved in documenting the bde2java project. The aim of this subproject was to add a postscript conversion utility to the existing bde2java application.

This utility adds the ability to print out the bde data file that the user has created, into postscript so that the user can print it out on a printer.

Description:

The Postscript conversion utility is used by bdeJava in the Application mode. It is invoked when the user chooses to print his bde editing session.The postscript conversion utility has been modified to now include two options. Namely, "Current Graph.." or "All Graphs..", to print either the Current Graph or All the Graphs in the current file respectively. The utility then prints out the current graph or all the graphs into postscript files. The name(s) of the postscript file(s) are obtained by concatenating the name of the file with the HG id of the current graph and a ".ps" extension.

Modifications to the bde2java application:

• Modified and documented the bdeAppletFrame class to implement the postscript conversion utility.
• Added fprint() methods to bdeGraph and bdeCaptionText classes to obtain the Graph Title and the Author's name and date/time of modification.
• Used the fprint() methods of bdeNode and bdeLink.

Invocation of this utility:

• User creates a graph or opens an existing bde data file
• User chooses the "Print" option from the "File" menu.
• At this point, the user has two choices
• Print Current Graph
• Print all the Graphs (For multiple graphs in a single data file)
• When the user chooses one of the above two, he gets postscript file(s) of the graph(s).

The Postscript utility prints the Graph Title, all the Nodes and Node Captions, all the Links and Bendpoints and the Author's name, date/time of modification and the current working directory.This utility currently supports the following:

• Nodes and Node Captions (CG)
• Links and Bendpoints (HL and HP)
• Graph Title (CG)
• Author's name, date and time of modification and current working directory.

To be implemented:

• bdeNodeAttributes: Following the WYSIWYG principle, the bdeNodeAttributes are not currently printed by the Postscript conversion utility since they are not visible on bdejava's editing panel.
• bdeLinkCaptions: This class has not been implemented for bde2java yet.

Sample runs of the postscript conversion utiliity:

• [an error occurred while processing this directive]/ps.samples/schooltest.dat
  The bdeData file.
• [an error occurred while processing this directive]/ps.samples/schooltestHG000001.ps
  The postscript file for Graph 1 "School Department".
• [an error occurred while processing this directive]/ps.samples/schooltestHG000002.ps
  The postscript file for Graph 2 "Person"
• [an error occurred while processing this directive]/ps.samples/schooltestHG000003.ps
  The postscript file for Graph 3 "Student"

Observations:

Time spent in learning Java: 50 hours.
Time spent in understanding bde2Java: 20 hours.
Time spent in adding and modifying code: 40 hours.

Some of my personal observations:
Although I have tried to understand and modify the bde2java code by myself, I had faced the difficulty of trying to understand code written in a new language and most of all the project being very young, there is a lack of extensive documentation of the implementation details (a programmer's manual), which is the main motivation of the bde2java project of 96f523.

Most of all, I felt the need for:

• Documentation of the various methods
• A comprehensive overview of the whole project
• The structure of the whole application itself
• The need for a set of Coding Standards for consistency

Which the bde2java team of 96f523 has taken up as it's responsibilities.

I have tried my best to adhere to the Coding Standards that we have derived from mutual consent and discussion while adding or modifying the code of bde2java application.