In the normal case, running soundscrape will present you with a graphical window. The first thing you see is the main Soundscrape window.
On the top of the main window, you will find the standard toolbar buttons and menu bar. If you are reading this within Soundscrape itself, you probably activated one of the `Help' options to get here. The rest of the options are described later in this chapter.
In the center of the main window is a buffer, used by the soundscrape engine to output messages to the user, or results of an evaluation. Below the output buffer is an entry box for you to type in expressions for evaluation. Go ahead and type (+ 3 5) in the box, hit RET, and check the output buffer: pretty straightforward, no?
These graphical controls talk to the engine (or interpreter) directly. Together, the input control (the text entry) and the output control (the buffer) are called the listener. This is because the interpreter is listening to the main window for expressions to evaluate.
Additional keybindings for the text mode are described in the documentation for the text-mode interface.
You will find that the listener responds to most of the ``normal'' bindings you may find in other applications. In addition, there are some Soundscrape-specific bindings:
PageUp and Ctrl-PageDownThese keys scroll the output window in the graphical interface.
TabWhen you press Tab, the interpreter searches the all of the variables it knows about for those names that start with the text you have already entered. It then displays the possible completions to your text in the output window. Thus, if you enter s i n TAB, the interpreter might print out:
sin sine singlePara sinusWavewrapper sinCos single-active-thread? sinh
If there is only one possible completion, your text undergoes tab completion: it is replaced with the newly completed text.
Up and DownThese keys access expressions that you have previously entered into the interpreter.
Soundscrape keeps a history of previous values that have been calculated. They are stored into the variables $1, $2, $3 and so on. Note that the dollar sign ($) has no special meaning in Scheme.
ss> 3 $1 = 3 ss> (+ 2 2) $2 = 4 ss>
In the examples in this tutorial, the history variable is usually left off, as it will almost certainly be different for you in your Soundscrape session.
For longer Soundscrape sessions, it is dissatisfying to have to type everything at the listener line-by-line. Of equal importance is the need to keep your work from one session to the next. Soundscrape provides for these needs by embedding a simple, but powerful, text editing control. You can access this control by clicking the `New Source Window' button in the main window, or choosing `Windows -> New Source Window'.
The source window should be relatively straightforward to use, as it is very similar to other text editors. Features of note include undo and redo support, syntax highlighting for scheme, parenthesis matching, semi-clever indenting, and clever Home/End keybindings.