Protyper.IZL version 1.0

Protyper is a program written in IZL to aid would-be IZL programmers.  
It lets you create IZL objects (menu items, buttons, functions, etc.) 
by just clicking buttons and typing in a few values.  (Of course, it 
can't create variable names or logic for your functions; you'll have 
to do that yourself. :-)

When you first start up Protyper, you'll see a number of buttons. Some 
of them are always available; some are available only at certain 
times.  I'll go through them one by one.

Main Screen buttons
-------------------
The first set of buttons lets you fiddle with program objects.

Create - This lets you create a new IZL object.  After you press 
Create, you'll see the Create Selection Screen, where you can choose 
to create any of the eleven objects in IZL.  Create always inserts the 
new object immediately after the current object.  Of course, you can 
select Cancel if you decide you don't want to create a new object.

Edit - You select Edit when you want to make changes to an existing 
object.  You can change anything about an object except its type.  To 
do that, you'd have to delete the old object and create a new one.

Delete - This deletes the current object, with no "Are you sure?" 
message and no possibility for undeleting.  'Nuf said.

Next/Prev - These two buttons let you navigate through the program 
you're building.  Next takes you to the next object in your program; 
Prev takes you to the previous object in your program.

Promote - When you click on this button, Protyper swaps the current 
object with the one before it in the program.  It effectively moves 
the current object ahead by one place in the program.

The next set of buttons lets you work with the program as a whole.

New - This wipes out the program you're working on and lets you start 
a whole new program without stopping and restarting Protyper.

Export - This writes out your program as a *.IZL program file, ready 
to be run or edited with a text editor.

Save - This button saves your work in a *.IZP file.  This is 
Protyper's own file format.

Load - You use this button to load *.IZP files.  It wipes out whatever 
your current program is and replaces it with the new program.

Append - This button lets you read in previously-saved *.IZP files.  
The difference between this button and the Load button is that Append 
*doesn't* wipe out the program in memory.  It just adds the objects in 
the new *.IZP file to the current program.

Screens other than the main screen
----------------------------------
The screens other than the main screen should be pretty much 
self-explanatory.  The Create Selection screen lets you choose what 
kind of object you want to select.  The Object Definition screen lets 
you set the various characteristics of the objects you're defining.  
The File Selection screen works like pretty much every other file 
selection screen in GEOS, except that the Save button forces the file 
extension to be IZP, while the Export button forces the file extension 
to be IZL.

A word about *.IZP files
------------------------
*.IZP files serve two purposes in Protyper.  First, they let you save 
your work so that you can go back and edit it later.  That way you 
don't have to start from scratch every time you want to modify a 
program you created using Protyper.  Second, they let you build up a 
list of useful program segments that you can pop ready-made into 
programs you're creating.  (Hint:  That's what the Append button is 
for.)  I've included some of the program segments I find useful in 
with the Protyper package.

This program was written by Doug Taylor (doug-taylor+@osu.edu).  It 
has been placed into the public domain.  Feel free to hack it, steal
routines from it, or whatever.
