MrEd Designer 3.x

MrEd Designer is WYSIWYG program to create GUI applications for Racket.

Design principle: The user should not have to modify the generated code manually. (Because this code is likely to be overwritten regularly.) If you do, then file an issue.

Documentation and screenshots: https://github.com/Metaxal/MrEd-Designer/wiki

If you face difficulties with MrEd Designer or for any other comment you can contact me (laurent orseau gmail com) or file an issue.

Installation

In DrRacket: Select File > Install a package... and choose mred-designer.

Or from the command line, type:

raco pkg install mred-designer

Quick Start

To start MrEd Designer, either type in the interactions window in DrRacket:

(require mred-designer)

or from the command line (recommended):

racket -l mred-designer

MrEd Designer starts with an empty project.

1. Click on the "frame" button in the Main Panel (the one labelled "MrEd Designer" with all the buttons); this adds a frame to the project. The (small) frame appears on the screen and a new entry appears below the project name in the Hierarchy Panel.
2. Select the frame, either by clicking inside it, or by clicking on its name in the Hierarchy Panel. Several buttons become enabled in the Main Panel. Now click on the "button" button . A button appears in the frame.
3. Click on this new button. It is now selected in the Hierarchy Panel, and the Properties Panel displays various modifiable information about the button. In front of "label", change the label from "Button" to "Click me!". Click on Apply&Update Preview.
4. Click on File > Generate Racket file... and save the code to some place, say in my-project-GUI.rkt. (Note that this only generates a Racket file but does not save your MrEd Designer project for further editing--use File > Save Project for this.)
5. Now, either open my-project-GUI.rkt in DrRacket and execute it, or call on the command line with racket my-project-GUI.rkt. You should see the frame that you have created.

Writing your program's logic

Once my-project-GUI.rkt is generated, you can write your program logic in a separate file, say my-project-logic.rkt (here we assume the two files are in the same directory). Write the following code in this new file:

#lang racket
(require "my-project-GUI.rkt")

(project-1488-init
 #:button-1689-callback
 (λ(bt ev)
   (send bt set-label "It works!")))

Make sure you change the numbers accordingly (see inside my-project-GUI.rkt), or better yet in MrEd Designer change the names of the project and the button to something more meaningful in the Properties Panel (don't forget to click Apply&Update Preview and then File > Generate Racket file...).

Do not modify the file my-project-GUI.rkt manually, as you will likely re-generate this file several times from within MrEd Designer, thus overwriting any change you may have done!

Execute my-project-logic.rkt, the frame and button should appear. Click on the button. The button's label should now say "It works!".

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