The Menubar

The Menubar currently has three menus, this section will be really obvious and can probably be skipped.

• File Menu
  • New - Create a new Flowchart
  • Save - Save the current Flowchart
  • Open - Open a saved Flowchart
  • Close - Close the current Flowchart
  • Quit - Make Asylum go kaboom.
• Code Menu
  • Generate 1# - Generate the 1# code needed for this Flowchart.
• Help Menu
  • About - Display version information.

The Flowchart Tabs

This is a simply tabbed window that shows each open Flowchart in a new tab. Clicking on each will make the editor work on a different Flowchart.

The Flowchart Editor

The real bulk of the program lies here.

The Toolbar

At the top is a toolbar that lists each tool you can use.

• Case - Creates a Case statement.
• Push 1 - Creates a Push 1 statement.
• Push # - Creates a Push # statement.
• Label - Creates a Label, just here to be pretty.

The Canvas

Below that is the Canvas that you design on. To use a tool, simply click it, then left click on the Canvas where you want it to go. Didja misclick? No problem, all tools can be dragged around to the right position by clicking and dragging them.

Right-Clicks (Ctrl+Click on a Mac)

The other interaction you can have with the tools is by right clicking on them once placed on the Cavnas. This brings up a context specific menu. All tools can be set as the initial tool for the Canvas, this is where the code starts. If you have no intial tool, there will be no code generated, you have been warned. You can also add links between the nodes. Everything but Case statements has just one link (see below), and Case statements have three types. Each tool can have just one link of each type. If you want to remove the tool, click remove.

Links

Links go between each tool and show the flow of control. They act a lot like other tools, and can be dragged around to move them, and right clicked on if you right-click or drag on the yellow box. The links from Push statements and Labels show blank, because they can only have one link and there's no branching. Case statements have three links:

• 1 - Where the control goes if a 1 is found.
• # - Where the control goes if a # is found.
• [An unprintable box] - Where the control goes if the register is empty.

To create a link, right-click on the start tool, click 'Add [type of links ya want]', then left-click on the tool it should connect to. Initially the link is placed directly between the two tools, but it can be dragged around to move out of your way by dragging the yellow box. If you place a bad link, either link it again correctly, the tool will overwrite the old link, or right-click and remove the bad link.