Assignment for 05-830, User Interface Software, Spring, 1997.

Text Edit Benchmark Description

Matthew J. Tarpy
Chien-Hao Chen
Revised

Introduction

This is a simple text editor with which users may open one document to edit. The interface styles include menus, dialogue boxes, and shortcuts (function keys and tool-bars). This benchmark is representative of the interfaces found in such programs as Notepad and Wordpad (Windows 95 and NT 4.0), xemacs (UNIX), In addition to this, we feel that this benchmark is indicative of most routine text editing tasks.

The main thing that makes this benchmark not just be the editor that might come built-in with the toolkit is the requirement that selected text can be dragged to the toolbar to change the formatting, as described below. The intention is to see if customized editing manipulations can be easily added to the built-in facilities.

Detailed Description

• Window: The main window for this text editor will consist of a ``standard'' tool-bar (``File'', ``Edit'', etc...). Below that will be a tool-bar that consists of the standard icons (font commands, layout commands, etc.), and below that will be the main text editing area.

• Menus:
  • File: The File menu contains the following choices, ``New'' (creates a new document), ``Open'' (opens an existing document), ``Save'' (saves a file), ``Exit'' (quits the program). (For the purpose of this benchmark, Open and Save do not necessarily have to be implemented).
  • Edit: The Edit menu is responsible for interaction between selected text, the clipboard, and inserted text. The options are: ``Cut'' (take the currently selected text, and move it into the Clipboard), ``Copy'' (copy the currently selected text into the Clipboard), ``Paste'' (insert the text from the Clipboard where the cursor is currently located) (For this benchmark, it is necessary for these functions to be implemented, in addition drag-and-drop cut and replace should be impelemented if the toolkit permits it)
  • Format: The Format menu contains the commands necessary to change the format and layout of text in the current document.When these commands are applied it will be necessary for the editor to determine if there is a selected area of text currently active, or if this is to be applied to text typed until the command is unselected. ``Bold'' changes the text to the bold typeface. ``Italic'' changes to the italicized typeface. ``Underline'' places an line under the text. The editor will also need to handle cases where multiple commands are selected (i.e.- bold and italic), (For this benchmark, it is necessary that these functions need to be implemented, however if you would like to implement more than just the "Bold", "Italic", and "Underline" functionality, this would also be acceptable).
• Tool-bar: Beneath the mail menu bar will reside the tool bar. This tool bar will consist of icons that when clicked will perform the action that the icon represents. One thing that will be implemented for this benchmark is that if there is text currently selected, and it ``picked up'' with the mouse (see Word or WordPerfect for an example of this) and then `drug through'' the icon will have that formatting option applied to the text, as the text ``snaps back'' to its original position. As the cursor enters the icon, the icon should depress, signifying that a formatting change is being requested.
• Window Manager: This editor should interact with the window manager in the usual way for the operating system and manger.