Tutorial
Creating and Using Projects

One of MultiEd's special features not found in common text editors is its ability to handle "projects". Projects have the following advantages:

• They allow managing several related text files.
• The user can open files or make already open files active by clicking the name of a file
• In several programming languages, MultiEd can find classes and methods or functions. Clicking the name of the item will take you to that item. This feature may be so useful that it may make sense to create a project for a single long file.
• A project file optionally can be used as documentation.
• Programmable tool buttons can be set up to handle projects and special tools for Java, JavaFX, Processing and Processing.js are provided.
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The MultiEd distribution contains some projects in the ExampleProject folder. We will use files in that folder in this tutorial.

Using an Existing project

1. Open the project: If there are any open files in your copy of MultiEd, it may be helpful to close them first. Then click the project button . Select "Open" from the drop down menu. Browse to the ExampleProject directory in the MultiEd directory (normally C:\MultiEd\ExampleProject). Pick ShapeDemo2.proj. (ShapeDemo2 has some extra features not in the other project file. (Note: you can also open projects using the normal open file techniques. The result is the same either way.) This project consists of 4 .java files and 1 .txt file which contains documentation for the project.
2. Use the project file window: Observe that MultiEd displays the project in a special window on the right side of MultiEd's window with a yellow background. The files in the project are listed. This project also includes optional C and Java style comments: // denotes an end-of-line comment and /* .. */ denotes the beginning and end of comments.
3. Open and active files using the project file window: Double click one of the files the project window. The file is opened. Double click to open a second file. Double click the first file name to activate the already opened file.
4. Open and active files using the project tree window: Observe the project tree on the left side of MultiEd's window. (If it is not displayed, select menu item "Project | Show tree" to display the tree.) In the left hand project tree window, Circle.java, Point.java, and ShapeDemo.java are already open. Click on some file names and observe that clicking on a file in the project tree results in the same action as double clicking on the file in the yellow project file.
5. Select a class or method: Notice the open .java files have a small "+" in the box left of the file icon. Click on some of them. The tree expands. Lines marked with a "C" represent a class in the file. Click on the little "+" left of a class name. The tree expands again to show methods in the class. (F stands for "function", one of the traditional names for methods.) In the right hand project window, ShapeDemo.java has one class (ShapeDemo). That class has three methods.Click on a class or method name. MultiEd will activate the file (if needed) and then move to the line on which the name is defined. For long files with many methods, this feature may justify creating a project for a single file.

   Important note: The class and function items are not automatically updated as you edit the file for efficiency reasons. So after modifying a file, you may need to click the Update button to update the project tree.

6. Compile and run the program: Activate one of the .java files other than the "main program" ShapeDemo.java. Click the special "Compile and run" tool button (notice the "P" for "Project") whose tool tip reads "Java project compile and run". MultiEd will automatically save any project file that has been changed and submit the "main" program ShapeDemo.java to be compiled. Java compiles any required file that has been modified. The resulting program is run in the AppletViewer. The second special Java project "Run" tool with the tool tip "Java project run" only runs the project without recompiling it. Notice that the original "Java compile and run" button will only save and compile the active Java file.

   Note: MultiEd takes advantage of "javac" in this situation. Javac normally will normally recompile any required Java source file that has been saved since the last compile. Unfortunate, it sometimes misses newly saved files. You may have to compile individual files if updates in them seem to be ignored.

Creating a project

1. Open the files to be added to the project: In this case we assume that you have already have the ShapeDemo2.proj file open. If so, make sure all the four .java files are open but close the ShapeDemo2.txt file if it is open. Then close the yellow project file window. The project tree will close automatically.
2. Create the project: Click the project button . A dialog box opens and asks for the name of the project. For Java, it is best to name the project with the name of the "main" program. In this case the main program is ShapeDemo.java so type "ShapeDemo" and click OK. MultiEd then asks for the directory in which to store the project file. It is normally best to store the project file in the same directory as the files. So in this case select ExampleProject folder in the MultiEd directory (normally C:\MultiEd\ExampleProject). MultiEd creates the project file, displays it along with the project tree.
3. Add a file to the project: Note that the project does not include ShapeDemo.txt yet. Open the file. While the file is the active file, select the menu item "Project | Add current file to project". MultiEd adds the file to the project file. Alternatively you can select "Project | Add all open files to project". Actually MultiEd is smart about this. If an open file is already in the project, it is not added a second time. The project file is not added to the project either.
4. Optional: Add documentation to the project file The project file can be edited just like any other file. You can add Java and C like comments using // and /* ...*/ .
5. Save the project file: Select the project file window and click the save button .

Whole project Find and Replace operations

If you click the find or replace buttons after opening a project, you will observe an new check box called "Whole project". When checked the Find/Replace box will change color to yellow to signify "Whole project" search. MultiEd will automatically cycle through all the pages in the project to let you carry out operations on all project files. After finishing the last file, the Whole project box is unchecked and the bar returns to the original color.

Please contact brinkje@plu.edu if you have questions, comments, suggestions, or discover a bug.

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Revised: 8/19/2011