GUI Interface ------------- When back to the early 2000, ELI was designed with GUI interface and developed with Microsoft MFC. It provided interactive user input and allowed programmers to write up ELI scripts within the integrated environment. At that time, ELI could not process scripts written in ELI while it maintained ELI workspace which contained variables, functions, run-time stacks and system configurations. And ELI only runs on Windows. From 2011 to 2013, we extended ELI to support more features. It was more flexible for programmers to quickly test their code. Some of the new features are highlighted on Windows as follows. - multi-line editions - short function - interactively input function With the expansion from Windows to Linux and MacOS, we provided terminal versions for both platforms. Without GUI interface, it seemed hard for beginners to start ELI in a friendly environment. Especially, when Wai-Mee was writing `ELI for kids`_, we realized that a good integrated development environment (IDE) can attract more attention from beginners. At present, we redesign and implement the GUI part of ELI based on `Qt development`_. Except those existing features, we introduce some intuitive design to ease the pain of the invisibility of the ELI interpreter, such as variables, functions and libraries. - monitors for variables, functions, libraries and history commands - fast typing to copy/delete variable and functions - a well-designed code editor for learning to write ELI code easily Because Qt is a cross-platform development tool, it can be an effortless work to port the GUI part to popular platforms, including Windows, Linux and MacOS. Main window =========== - store three dock widgets (or more) location for next login - complete functions in the tool bar - setup wizard for automatically installing software on Windows Code editor =========== - line display - syntax highlight - semantics help - a look-up table for ELI-APL table Debug mode (Developing) ======================= - set/cancel break points (manageable) - while debugging, no edit is allowed - check temp variables and run-time stack .. _ELI for kids: http://fastarray.appspot.com/document.html .. _Qt development: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_(software)