interface
Streamtool's GUI aims to be responsive and informative, meaning that you can both create and interrogate a live streaming system. At the same time, it aims to be as minimal as possible - the GUI posses a very tight relationship with the underlying streamtools architecture enabling users of streamtools to see and understand the execution of the system.
To make a block, double click anywhere on the background. Type the name of the block you'd like and press enter.
To connect two blocks together, first click on an outbound route on the bottom of the block you want to connect from. Almost always this route will be labelled OUT when you mouse over it. Then click on an inbound route on the top of another block. There can be a few inbound routes; common ones are IN, RULE, and POLL. This will create a connection between the blocks.
To set a block's rules, double click it. This will open a window where you can enter rules. When you're done entering rules, hit the update button.
You can query a block's rules, or any other queryable route a block has, by clicking on the red squares on the right of the block. These will open a window that shows a JSON representation of that information. An example of a queryable route is COUNT for the count block. If you click on the little red square associated with the COUNT route, then you'll get a JSON representation of that block's current count.
To delete a block you don't like anymore, click on it and press the delete (backspace) button on your keyboard.
To move a block around, simply drag it about the place.
To see the last message that passed through a connection, click and drag the connection's rate estiamte. This creates a window containing the JSON representation of the last message to pass through that connection.
- For background on responsive programming tools see Bret Victor's learnable programming.