Wrapping up the work on Stringscope's commands
I finished implementing the commands of Stringscope, the string listing tool I'm developing with Medley Interlisp.
After Sort, Reset, and Exit I wrote the code for Min Len, Find, and Get. I also added the new command Info to show in the prompt area some statistics about the strings. Coding the other commands gave me the idea and Implementing Info seemed easy, so I did it.
Now Stringscope looks like this, with the prompt area attached to the top side of the main window and the menu at the right side:
I renamed the menu item Set threshold to Min Len as the former was too wide and stood out. Min Len is more consistent with the documentation and code of Stringscope. In addition, I centered the items instead of aligning them flush left. This is the more idiomatic way most traditional Interlisp programs and system tools lay out menus.
To explain how the commands work I recorded a screencast that walks through the features and input validation of Stringscope.
I demonstrated the program by opening and interacting with two binary files, the DOCTEST.TEDIT document created with the TEdit rich text editor and the program's compiled executable STRINGSCOPE.LCOM. I also threw in some invalid data as input to show input validation in action.
After writing the code of the commands I realized Stringscope grew to support all the features I initially planned, plus a couple more I thought of along the way.
Medley Interlisp seemed overwhelming and intimidating at first but it was too much fun, so I pressed on using and studying the system. The effort paid off and now I can not only find my way around, but also create a small yet complete program with a GUI. This is a milestone to celebrate.
It's probably time to ship version 1.0 and start thinking of how to improve Stringscope and its design.
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