Vvidget Code > Overview > Glossary
Below is a glossary of words used in this manual. It may be a good place to start if you can assimilate the information right away because it simply lists all the important and unique words. If you are knowledgeable about usual programming words then reading this section gives you knowledge about the unusual (Vvidget specific) words and hence you should have knowledge about all the words and then you know everything! - In theory at least, but practical aspects tend to obscure matters.
| Terminology | Definition |
| Cocoa | Cocoa is a framework that is written in the Objective-C language. The Cocoa Programming section is actually not about Cocoa programming at all, rather it is about utilizing Vvidget in the context of Cocoa Programming. While Cocoa Programming involves many hard to understand indirections and non-localized state information, Vvidget Code takes the opposite approach. With Vvidget Code you form a localized textual state of a graph and then Vvidget Code returns the graph visual. It is very much different then Cocoa programming, but on the other hand it is very easy to use, it is direct and also it produces incredible results with minimal effort. Cocoa is a big amorphous state blob while Vvidget Code is essentially a discrete state machine. |
| Deploy | When you make an application with Vvidget then you can send it to others. That is called Deploying your application or distributing it. The Cocoa Programming Tutorial section winds up with a paragraph about deployment. The Deploy section is more specific. |
| Dictionary | A Dictionary is a list of entries that consist of a word (called a key) and its associated definition (called a value). The entries are a pairing between keys and values. The Dictionary section goes into detail regarding the keys and their values. A human language dictionary is ordered by the lexical value of the key, but in the programming world a dictionary usually has no defined order or the order is based on the order that the entry was appended to the dictionary. |
| Embedded Frameworks | Embedded Frameworks are object libraries and resources that are installed with an application and are located in that application's bundle. They are only used by that application and normally only by the user that installed that application (unless the user installed that application to a shared area). The project in the Cocoa Programming Tutorial section details the use of the Vvidget Embedded Frameworks. |
| Graph | A graph is a way to represent numeric values either qualitatively or quantitatively in a visual format. A Line Graph is an example of quantitative representation while a Pie Chart is a qualitative format. With a line graph you can take a ruler to it and read a data value, but with a pie chart it is not so easy to measure out the radius of the arc of a wedge and it is not intended to be so. A Perspective Surface Chart is also qualitatively as it is very hard to factor out the non-linear perspective transformation to the page. |
| Illustration | An illustration in the context of this manual is a small section of code that you can plug into the Illustration project in order to immediately generate a running graphing application for a particular type of graph. For example, you can quickly program a 2D line graph application and then subsequently paste in a different code section to make a 3D perspective graph type or other graph type. Thus you can rapidly prototype code for all the graph types described in this manual by using illustration code fragments. |
| State | Vvidget Code is a state machine. It takes an input state described as a Dictionary and Templates and outputs a graphical display. The dictionary is intended to describe the most important elements of the dynamic nature of the state while the template is intended to describe the static qualities of the state. The dictionary is easy to specify programmatically while the template is easy to specify through a GUI tool. Together the dictionary and the template make it easy to specify the entire input state for Vvidget Code processing. |
| Shared Frameworks | Shared Frameworks are object libraries and resources that are installed onto your computer in a shared common area and can used by many applications and users on that computer. Because they are shared resources they are not duplicated on your hard drive nor are they duplicated within an application. That saves space on your hard drive and also makes any application referencing the shared frameworks smaller as they simply reference a resource and do not contain the resource. Contrast a Shared Framework v.s. an Embedded Framework. The Develop section explains the use of the Vvidget Shared Frameworks as well as related issues. |
| Template | A template is a Vvidget Builder document that has specific components with names given to them within the document. Those components have attributes, such as autoscaling, that are not normally utilized in a graphical layout end user application and they are there for the programmatic aspects of the document and specifically for Vvidget Code. In addition, templates also contain most of the graphical attributes of Vvidget Code output, as it should because Vvidget Builder's main purpose is to define such attributes. For additional information on Vvidget Builder consult its manual. Template use is described in the Templates section. |
| Vvidget Code | Vvidget Code is an easy to use discrete state machine. You send it prescribed input and it sends you the result. The state of that transaction is processed within Vvidget Code and latitude for differentiation is provided via the dictionary and template facilities. |
| VvidgetCodeView | VvidgetCodeView is a subclass of the Cocoa NSView class and is the hook (or interface) between Cocoa and Vvidget Code. You normally make (instantiate) an instance of VvidgetCodeView by dragging it from the Interface Builder Library onto your application's window. Once there, the VvidgetCodeView is added to the hierarchy of your application's views as a subview. You need to know very little about Cocoa and its view mechanism if you wish to simply follow the cookie cutter methodology as given in the Illustration section and drag and drop controls and views into your application. |
| Vvidget Frameworks | The project in the Cocoa Programming Tutorial section links against the Vvidget Frameworks, but nothing is really said about them otherwise. That is because Vvidget Code (not the Frameworks) is a "thin interface" or "restricted API" to a much larger system. The "conduit" of the thin interface is a handful of methods (mostly dictionary-related methods) whose arguments are translated into a vast object network and complex topology within the Vvidget Frameworks which are admittedly formidable to understand. Most developers that use graphs simply want a graph and do not want to learn another complex library or framework and Vvidget Code is intended to satisfy that desire. On a related note: The Vvidget Code API is not a subset and is not a culling of the Vvidget Framework API, rather it is a unique API that maps in a highly nonlinear way to the architecture and calling sequence of the Vvidget Frameworks. |
| Vvidget Pro | Whereas Vvidget Code is an easy to use discrete state machine, Vvidget Pro swims in the soup of Cocoa and is as big and intimidating as Cocoa itself. Vvidget Pro is used to program the Vvidget Code State Machine. Also note that "Vvidget Builder Pro" is the pro version of an end user application and is not the programming framework called "Vvidget Pro". |
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