TickTape Bean Package

TOC

Overview

Purpose

The TickTape Bean Package consists of one bean - the TickTape Bean.

The TickTape Bean allows a web site to display images (JPEG/GIF) for presenting information or using as an advertising banner. This bean has two view modes: slideshow and scrollshow. In the slideshow mode, images are shown in turn, and only one image can be seen at each time. In the scrollshow mode, images scroll across the display area with four directions. There is a control bar , with which users can select the image that they want to display.  In both modes, when users click on any visible image, a TickTapeEvent is fired.


previous Audience

This document is intended to be used by application builders who would like to build Java applications which provide TickTape  functionality.

The application developer is expected to be familiar with the Java language and the JavaBeans architecture. The developer should be familiar with building applications by linking beans in an application builder tool. Familiarity with the functionality of TickTape would be advantageous, though not mandatory. No knowledge about the implementation of TickTape is required in order to use this bean.


previous How to Use This Guide

Guide Conventions

Typographical Conventions

Conventions Description Example
Text in bold buttons and field names of dialog boxes OK, Cancel, Modify, etc.
Text in italics names of dialog boxes, figures, reference to chapters and other sections, task name etc. Modify Dialog, Figure 1, Overview, etc.
  • Round bullets
list of points
  • TickTape Bean
Numbered list 1, 2, 3, .... sequential steps
  1. After downloading TickTape.zip, ....
  2. To use the component in BeanBox, copy the jar file to BeanBox jars directory.
Text in Bold and Italics name of the file ticktape.zip
Text in Courier font names of classes, methods, events, part of code included in the document, etc. TickTapeEvent

Mouse Conventions

Conventions Description  Example
Select Click the left mouse button Select the File menu.

Keyboard Conventions

Keys Represented 
Control Ctrl
Alternate Alt

Images

Image Used to
previous navigate to the previous sub-heading
previous navigate to the previous main heading
toc return to the Table of Contents
note represent a Note information

Guide Organization

Overview - introduces the user to the TickTape. Provides information like intended audience, guide conventions, guide organization and copyrights

Component Description - describes the TickTape component in general. It gives information on domain concepts, list of beans in the package and deployment scenarios

Installation Instructions - describes the hardware and software required for installing and using the TickTape, and also describes how to install the bean.

Usage Instructions - provides information on bean usage, wiring scenarios and serialization.

Alternating Wiring Scenarios - describes special wiring scenarios that may involve beans within and outside the component package.

Individual Bean Documentation - provides links to individual bean documentation which describe each bean in the package w.r.t. its events, properties methods etc.

User Interface - describes the various user interface components like menus, dialog boxes etc. of the TickTape component.

Error Messages - lists the various error messages that may appear when using the bean

Demo Application - describes the demo application and provides instructions on how to run the demo application.

References - provides links to internet sites which give substantial reference documentation.

Glossary - gives a brief explanation of some of the technical terms used in the document.


previous Copyrights And Trademarks

Copyright © 1998 IBM Corp.

All rights reserved.

IBM and VisualAge are trademarks of International Business Machines in the United States and/or other countries.

* Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries.


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Component Description

Domain Concepts

The TickTape Bean is  a graphical user interface which allows users to view images and animations. 

previous General Description

The objective of the TickTape Bean is to provide an easy-to-use image viewer to Internet.
The bean provides a flexible interface for applications to use while hiding the implementation details. It can be used either in an application or in an applet.
The TickTape Bean provides APIs and property editors for user to access data and customize the properties. 
In order for the bean to be able to work with other beans developed by third party vendors, the bean not only implements events as a mechanism for handling user interaction, but also provides APIs that accept the data which it expects in events it receives and APIs that return data that is contained in events the beans throw. For example, when the user clicks on an image, a TickTapeEvent is fired with the information about the image.


previous List of Beans

 

previous Deployment Scenarios

The TickTape Bean can be used to create a stand-alone and dedicated application capable of displaying animations. It can also be embedded into a HTML page for advertisement and online purchase.


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Installation Instructions

Hardware Requirements

These JavaBeans are designed to be compliant with 100% Pure Java requirements, and will therefore execute on any hardware platform that supports the Java Environment.

35 KB(37KB for VisualCafe 2.0) of disk space is required to install the TickTape Bean Jar file. Additional hard disk space would be required to install the Java Development Kit, Bean Development Kit or any Java Application Builder Tool which may be used to build / compile applications using these beans.


previous Software Requirements

The TickTape Bean is designed to work with Java Development Kit Version 1.1 and above.

The bean may be linked to each other and tested in the BeanBox testing tool from JavaSoft. Any Java Application Builder (E.g. VisualAge for Java from IBM Corp, VisualCafé from Symantec Corp., Java Workshop from SunSoft) with JavaBeans support may be used to develop applications using these beans.


previous Installation

  1. Download UIControls from IBM AlphaWorks .
  2. Install UIControls. In BeanBox, put uicontrols.jar in the CLASSPATH. In IBM VisualAge for Java, import uicontrols.jar into WorkBench. In Symantec VisualCafé, insert uicontrolscafe.jar into Component Library.
  3. After ticktape.zip has been downloaded and unzipped, it automatically creates a new directory called ticktape and extracts files into it.
  4. To use the component in the BeanBox, copy (using the relevant copy command on the operating system) the jar file for the required component (available in the lib directory) to the BeanBox's jars directory.
  5. To use any component in any of the IDEs, import the corresponding .jar file.

  6. Note : Please refer to the User's Guide of your IDE on how to import a bean into the IDE.
  7. To run the demo application provided with this package, follow the steps given below .

previous Platform Dependencies

There are no platform specific issues for the TickTape Bean. Any operating system that supports Java can  use the TickTape Bean.


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Usage Instructions

Bean Usage

The jar file of the TickTape Bean should be added to the jars directory of the beanbox. The wiring scenarios are described below.

previous Wiring Scenario

Using TickTape Bean in an Applet or an Application
In this scenario, application builders would use the TickTape bean in their applet or application.
Wiring the applet/application to the TickTape bean would depend (to some extent) on the kind of functionality the application builder will provide through the menubar / toolbar. When using TickTape to build an applet, be sure to put the image resources in the correct place and using the right protocol in  URLs. (If you use the protocol "file", TickTape will try to find the resources in the client machine, not in the server).  


previous Serialization

The TickTape Bean is serializable. TickTape implements the Externalizable interface and the default mechanism for serialization can be applied without any change.


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Alternate Wiring Scenarios

In this scenario, application builders would use the TickTape bean in their applications (in VisualAge for Java 1.0).
Wiring the TickTape requires the following event: 1. Application Design Time:
 
  • Scenario 1.1 Creates a TickTape and a Label in the application builder.
  • Scenario 1.2  Adds images into the TickTape.
  • Scenario 1.3 Wires TickTape's TickTapeEvent with the Label (using Event to Script connection).
  • 2. Application Run Time:

    The user runs the application.

  • Scenario 1:
  •  


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    Individual Bean Documentation

    TickTape

     


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    User Interface

    This section describes the user interface of the TickTape Bean. It explains the various screens, dialog boxes, and buttons.
    Screens

    Main Screen
    The TickTape bean consists of a Main Screen as shown in Figure 1.
                                                        

    Figure 1 - Main Screen
    Slide Show
    TickTape has two showing styles: slideshow and scrollshow. The slideshow screen is shown in Figure 2.
     
    Figure 2 - Slide Show.
    Scroll Show
    ScrollShow screen is shown in Figure 3.
     
     
    Figure 3 -  Scroll Show
    Dialog Boxes
    The TickTape Bean provides a URLListEditor dialog box in the property sheet. Users can add, remove, edit and configure image URLs index in the list.

    The URLListEditor is shown in Figure 4.

     
    Figure 4 - URLListEditor

    Pressing the Add... button will open a standard FileDialog. Press the Remove button to remove the currently selected URL in the list. Press the Modify button to open the Modify Dialog.
    The Modify Dialog is shown in Figure 5.

     
    Figure 5 - Modify Dialog

    Buttons and Boxes
    The TickTape bean's GUI interface consists of  control buttons and simple buttons.

    Figure 6 - Control Buttons
         They are (from left to right): first, previous,next, last, play, pause and stop button.  


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    Error Messages

     
    Error Message Error Description Possible Solution
    Invalid filename 1. This file cannot be found 
    2. This URL format is not correct.
    Input the correct file name or URL name.
    Invalid showing style There is not the specified showing style. Input the correct showing style name.

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    Demo Application

    The demo directory contains  the necessary files for running the demo. The main demo file is rundemo.class. This demo application demonstrates how the TickTape Bean Package can be used.

    To run the demo application provided with this package, follow the steps given below :

    1. In MS-DOS command prompt, change directory to ticktape\demo
    2. Make sure that the java executable is in the PATH and also the CLASSPATH variable points to the classes.zip  in the JDK's lib directory and uicontrols.jar.
    3. Type rundemo in the command prompt. All the screens that come up in the demo application are explained in the section User Interface. (The batch file will set necessary CLASSPATH for you)
    Note: Please refer to Installation to get the information about UIControls.

    Setting the CLASSPATH

    WINDOWS CLASSPATH

    After installing the software, update the CLASSPATH environment variable as the following :
    Assume uicontrols.jar is put in the directory c:\uicontrols.

    1. For WINDOWS NT :

    2. Start the Control Panel, select System, then edit the CLASSPATH environment variable.

      Set the CLASSPATH to point to
      ticktape\lib\ticktape.jar;c:\uicontrols\uicontrols.jar

    3. For WINDOWS 95 :
    4. To change the CLASSPATH, open the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and make the change to the CLASSPATH statement. (Be sure to make a backup of the AUTOEXEC.BAT before making any changes).

      Set the CLASSPATH to point to
      ticktape\lib\ticktape.jar;c:\uicontrols\uicontrols.jar

      For example, if TickTape is installed under C:\ , set CLASSPATH as (add the following line to the end of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.)

      %CLASSPATH%;c:\ticktape\lib\ticktape.jar;c:\uicontrols\uicontrols.jar

    5. Reboot the machine for the changes to take effect.
    AIX CLASSPATH

    After installing the software, update the CLASSPATH environment variable as the following :

    1. Open the .profile file and set the CLASSPATH environment variable. (Be sure to take a backup of the .profile before making any changes.)
    2. Set the CLASSPATH to point to
      ticktape\lib\ticktape.jar:uicontrols\uicontrols.jar

      For example if TickTape is installed under the home directory then set CLASSPATH as - (add the following line to the end of the .profile file.)

      export CLASSPATH = ticktape\lib\ticktape.jar:uicontrols\uicontrols.jar: $CLASSPATH

    3. Type . .profile on the command line for the changes to take effect.
    OS/2 CLASSPATH

    After installing the software, update the CLASSPATH environment variable as the following :

    1. Open the CONFIG.SYS file and change the CLASSPATH statement. (Be sure to make a backup of the CONFIG.SYS before making any changes.)
    2. Set the CLASSPATH to point to
      ticktape\lib\ticktape.jar;uicontrols\uicontrols.jar

      For example if TickTape is installed under C:\ then set CLASSPATH as (append the following to the CLASSPATH environment variable of the CONFIG.SYS file.)

      %CLASSPATH%;c:\ticktape\lib\ticktape.jar;uicontrols\uicontrols.jar

    3. Reboot the machine for the changes to take effect.
    Running the demo application
    The complete source code is rundemo.java.
    This demo application demonstrates how the TickTape bean works. It allows two showing styles: slideshow and scrollshow. These styles are shown in this demo. In the left is the slideshow,  where TickTape shows a series of images in turn; In the right is  the scrollshow, where TickTape scrolls the images in four directions: from left to right, from right to left, from bottom to top and from top to bottom. By clicking the Switch button, the two TickTapes exchange their showing styles. If user click on any image of TickTape, the images is displayed in the middle of the demo screen. Users can interact with the demo by clicking the control buttons on the control bar to play, pause, stop the image viewer.

    The Main Screen :

     
                                        
    Figure 8 - TickTape Demo Screen
     

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    References

    Java Programming Language

    Java Beans Specifications
     


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    Glossary

    A | B | C | J |T
    A
    API
    Application Programming Interface
    Application (or Applet)
    A software product that uses (includes) the TickTape component
    B
    Bean
    A bean is a JavaBeans component. It is an independent, reusable software module. Beans may be visible objects, like AWT components, or invisible objects, like queues and stacks. A builder/integration tool manipulates Beans to create applets and applications.
    C
    Component
    A piece of software isolated into a discrete, easily reusable structure.
    J
    Java
    An object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems. Java programs are compiled into class files that can run on any computer platform that has a Java Virtual Machine.
    JavaBeans
    A portable, platform-independent component model, based on Java. The model allows creation of small, reusable, software components. A visual builder program combines components from different sources to create applications quickly and easily.
    T
                        TickTape
    An image view which can present informations or be used as an advertising banner.

    This document is last updated in V 1.0 on 06/02/1998.