Å ?!!

So what's with all this Å business anyway ? I still haven't been able to figure out why anyone would want to christen an animation language Å ( pronounced Awe ). Maybe because they think it's one ( or two ) up on C, or perhaps they think the animations will fill us with awe at their programming expertise !! ( punny !!). But whatever the reason, we spent a whole day calling it "A with a dot on top ", until the documentation finally set us right.

This is the first in a whole line of recently released animation languages and being in the Alpha stage, it is presently a little buggy. The main downside to this language is that some of the concepts, namely object declarations, are a tad difficult to grasp at first, but once you've thoroughly familiarized yourself with the intricacies of awe, you'll start wondering how you ever managed without them. These concepts are, however, much easier to use than similar features in other animation languages.

On the plus side however, it's use of the C language syntax really smoothens out the learning curve. This decision on the part of the developers makes the language much easier to learn and recall. Indeed, it is intended to be "... an extension of a subset of C. ", whatever that means !! Unlike C however, Awe has no provision for pointers, only real arrays, which are boundary checked at run-time ( a feature similar to one present in Java ). This makes the language adequately secure for transfer over the Internet. The inclusion of boundary checking prevents access to illegal memory, discouraging malicious programming.

So now you want it too, huh ?!!

Interested ? Well then, scurry over to the Candle site on the Web and download it NOW !! It's preferable if you work out these programs, run them and see their output as you read our explanation. Or you can read through our tutorial and then download the software. It's your choice.

We've worked on a Pentium 66 with 16 MB Ram, a large hard disk, Windows95 and a 256 color display adapter. We don't know if it will work on anything less, but check it out.

A little more on Å

The languages main attraction is however, something that bears absolutely no resemblance to C, Object declarations.

What are objects ? ( hey ! you C++ programmers, keep your hands down ! ). No, we're not referring to classes and objects as in C++, but to real objects, as in Awe. The best way to understand objects is to see them in action and use them in your own programs, but here is a short overview.

Objects make the programmers work much easier. For example in Awe, if you want to draw a line, you give the program the line attributes ( length, thickness, color, etc. ) and the program does the rest. Quite different from C/C++ where the programmer does all the work. Objects handle almost everything in the following programs, all you have to do is change the variables. But remember, objects only work well when they have all the relevant data. Leave anything out and be prepared for some surprises !! Objects also make possible the existence of the functions input and output. These functions enable input or output to be carried out in one step, leading to smoother and faster animation. So instead of drawing ten boxes one after the other, output will store them in memory and dump them onto the screen in one go.

As mentioned earlier, the best way to understand objects is to see them in action. So lets.

Learning our ÅBC's....

int main ()
{ 
}

Save the program with the extension .awe and store it in a separate subdirectory. Run the CandleWeb browser and load the file. Run it. That's all !!

On to the next one.

main()
{
resizeWindow (200, 100);
}

main()
{
setAnchor("http://www.candleweb.no ");
output;
}

main()
{
textobj points=((20,30)),outtext="How very interesting ! ",color=0xFF0000 ;
output;
}

int main ()
{ 
box points = ((0, 0), (100, 200)), fill = 1, color = 0x4444FF;
output;
}

You can add another function to the box object line, texture. Type in texture = 1 after the fill function and check out the results ! Also try out other value for the texture, other than one.

main()
{
image points=((0,0), (0,0)), image = "active.gif";
output;
}

main()
{
 image points=((0, 0), (0, 0)), level = 2, image = "active.gif";
 image points=((0, 0), (0, 0)), level = 1, image = "big.jpg";
 output;
}

Try changing both the levels to 2. When you do this, each image will be displayed, but the next image will overwrite the previous one, if placed at the same position.

int main ()
{
  int red = 0x884444;
  box
  points = ((5, 5), (694, 44)), fill = 1, color = red;
  output;
}

Now keep in mind that Awe has only three types of variables, ints, floats and text. ints and floats are used to hold numeric values and text is used to hold string constants.

int main ()
{ 
 int x=0;
 image points=((x,x), (100, 100)),image = "active.gif";
 while (1) 
 {
 x = x +1;
 output;
 wait( 50 );
 }
}

This is a concrete example of the utility of objects. Instead of a few lines of code, we could have had a hundred. All we have to change are the variables and nothing else, the output function takes care of everything. As you've probably noticed, most Awe programs have executable code down at the bottom, with all the rules up at the top.

Now you'll realize why we kept harping about the usefulness of objects. Try doing the same thing in C++ and measure both the file size and the litres of sweat you lose.

int main ()
{ 
 int x, y, on;
 window points = ((x,y), (x+130,y+150)), active = on, sb=0;
 image points=((0, 0), (0, 0)), level = -1, sb = 0, image = "active.gif";
 endwindow;
 while (1) {
 x = random( 4 , 660 );
 y = random( 50 , 460 );
 on = 1;
 output;
 wait( 50 );
 }
}

Again we enter an infinite loop and using the random function assign random values to the variable x and y, in the specified ranges. After a wait of .5 seconds, the images is displayed on the screen repeatedly and in random positions.

Neato !!!

main()
{
 inputarea points = ((1,1),(640,400)), translation = ("q" ; return 1 ; ) ;
 while (1) 
 {
 input;
 output; 	
 }
}

The inputarea represents user input. Using it you can receive input from your user. You can also use it to cut up your screen into various segments, with different things happening when they are stimulated.

More on translation coming right up !!

main()
{
int a=1; int b = 2
image points = ((0,0), (0,0)), level =b, sb = 0, image = "active.gif"
image points = ((0,0), (0,0)), level =a, sb = 0, image = "big,jpg"
inputarea points = ((1,1), (640,400))
translation = {Button1 : { a = 2; b = 1;}, Button3 : { a = 1; b = 2; }, "q" : return 1 ; ) ;
 while (1)
{
input;
output;
}
}

If I'm forced to explain the while loop again, I'll explode !!

main()
{
int x=1, y = 2
image points = ((x,y), (0,0)), level =-1, sb = 0, image = "active.gif"
inputarea points = ((1,1), (640,400))
translation = {Button1 : { mousePos (x,y);}, "q" : return 1 ; ) ;
while (1)
{
input;
output;
}
}

This program is very similar to its predecessor and I won't insult your intelligence ( and tire my fingers ) by explaining the nitty gritty of these program to you again. In short, we use the function mousePos to determine the position of the mouse pointer every time it is clicked. We then set the image points to these coordinates. So every time you click your mouse, the image moves.

Confession Time....

And another thing, the reason the number of programs given is small is because, one, it's so simple you can figure it all out yourself and two, we're to lazy to give you any more, so there !!

Mr. Vijay Mukhi
Mr. Arsalan Zaidi