Pre-release ETAC

Contents: The Visual Interaction System for ETAC, Downloading.

The ETAC™ package is free of charge, but is not open source or publicly owned. It is privately owned and copyrighted, and there are some licence restrictions on its use. The relevant licence terms and conditions are presented with each installation, and also included in each installation. The licence files are: RunETAC_Licence.pdf and ETACSource_Licence.pdf.

INTRODUCING the pre-release of the first graphics version of ETAC for writing windowed graphics application programs in the ETAC programming language. The pre-release includes the full (beta) graphics ETAC interpreter but excludes formal documentation and auxiliary programs. It includes a comprehensive tutorial program with executable ETAC code examples to demonstrate the graphics features of the new ETAC. The pre-release version of ETAC is installed in a self-contained portable folder, and does not affect any existing installation of ETAC or directly modify the system registry (however, Windows® may itself modify the registry discreetly). The production version (4-0-6-ena) of ETAC with graphics and formal documentation is expected to be released some time during the year 2025. Click the button below to download the pre-release ETAC graphics version (4-0.1-6-ena).

⇩ DOWNLOAD ETAC GRAPHICS VERSION ⇩

ETAC_Installers_PR_4-ena.zip

The Visual Interaction System for ETAC

The ETAC interpreter now intrinsically contains a system that allows user visual interactions with computer software. The system is called VIS (Visual Interaction System), and is implemented in both ETAC code and the ETAC interpreter executable program (C++), and can be used to create fully-fledged interactive 2-D graphics computer programs via the ETAC programming language. The system incorporates mainly vector graphics that the user can interact with, without the application programmer writing substantial ETAC code in many cases. No third-party software is used in or by VIS.

VIS allows an ETAC programmer to create a graphics application program by constructing the program via predefined (by VIS) components. There are components for projects, drawing planes (the “canvas” by which graphics objects are defined), VIEWs (graphics windows), graphics objects and sub-objects (the programmer-defined graphics to be drawn), five types of graphics items (which belong to graphics objects, and include vectors, text, and bitmaps), graphics contexts, pen attributes, brush attributes, bitmap attributes, text style attributes, and data packs. VIS components are not accessed by (or stored in) variables, but accessed by a unique text name or corresponding numerical identifier. VIS owns the components and maintains them where required.

To an ETAC application program, VIS is a set of ETAC API functions and commands, most of which create and set up the components of the application program as configured by the application programmer. However, VIS does not have direct drawing functions; the application program defines what to draw, but not how to draw. Therefore, the drawings that appear in VIEWs (windows) are defined by the application programmer via graphics components, and VIS automatically takes care of rendering a drawing onto the appropriate VIEW.

VIS implements some autonomous features, alleviating programmers themselves from explicitly programming those features. However, the programmer can disable those features and explicitly program their own desirable versions instead. An autonomous feature is typically activated by the programmer just setting an appropriate flag or calling an appropriate function; no other programming is necessary. Autonomous features include automatic rendering of images into a VIEW, scrolling and zooming the image in a VIEW via the right mouse button, mouse click and drag selection of graphics objects, graphics object resizing and movement via the left mouse button, automatic highlighting of graphics objects when selected, zoom range visibility for items, and fixed size items when zooming. The autonomous features are explained and demonstrated in the downloaded ETAC package.

The pre-release ETAC system with VIS is included in the single file ETAC_Installers_PR_4-ena.zip. The C++ source code for the ETAC system is not available, but ETAC code files used by the pre-release ETAC are included in the relevant installer within ETAC_Installers_PR_4-ena.zip. The installer file contains the following two self-installation executable files which can only install a portable version of the system into a user-specified folder which can later be deleted to uninstall the system.

RunETAC_4-0.1-6-ena_Installer.exe (Run ETAC Files) installs RunETAC.exe (the ETAC interpreter with VIS) and a tutorial package consisting of 14 tutorials. It also installs two demonstration programs — a simple calculator and a substantial flowchart creation program.
ETACSource_4-0.1-ena_Installer.exe (ETAC Source Files) installs the ETAC text script files for the tutorial package and the two demonstration programs. It also installs the source file for a Bezier and B-spline ETAC script library used by the tutorial package. The source files for VIS itself are not included.

NOTE: the installed ETAC files will not work with the existing ETAC version 3-0-6-ena or earlier version.

ETAC Programs

The following ETAC programs (written in ETAC and supplied with source code) are included in the downloaded ETAC package.

VISTutor

This is a tutorial package presenting most of the features of the new Visual Interaction System (VIS), and consists of 14 tutorials plus a draft reference of the VIS functions and commands. Each tutorial has at least one lesson. Most tutorials within the package include executable demonstration programs written in the new VIS ETAC system. The tutorial package itself is written in ETAC using VIS. NOTE: Familiarity with the ETAC Programming Language is assumed for the tutorials.

CalcDemo

This is a basic calculator program featuring the proper operator precedence (multiplication and division before addition and subtraction) and allows the entry of nested parentheses. It also has two storages.

FlowchartDemo

This program creates and saves flowchart diagrams. Any part of a diagram can be saved to the clipboard in an enhanced metafile format to be pasted into other applications. Additionally, selected parts of a diagram can be exported in the following file formats: bmp, emf, gif, jpg, png, and tif. Only a subset of the traditional flowchart symbols can be created. The text associated with most symbols is in RTF (Rich Text Format).

System Requirements

ETAC is only released for the Windows® operating system using the x86 (32-bit) architecture (it can also run on the x64 (64-bit) architecture) beginning with Windows® XP. Note that ETAC is not released for other platforms and non-Windows® operating systems. It is expected to operate correctly on any Windows® operating system compatible with the one mentioned. ETAC was formally tested on the Windows® XP (x86) and Windows® 7 (x64) operating systems only.

Documentation

ETAC is released only in the (Australian) English language. Formal documentation for the graphics version of ETAC is not currently available, but the included VISTutor program contains significant information to gain a good understanding of VIS. See the Documentation page for the formal documentation of the current (non-VIS) ETAC system.

Installation Procedure

Download the ETAC_Installers_PR_4-ena.zip file.
Unpack the downloaded zip file, and run the RunETAC_4-0.1-6-ena_Installer.exe self-installation executable file.
To inspect the ETAC source files, run the ETACSource_4-0.1-ena_Installer.exe self-installation executable file.
Read the ReadMe.txt file for further information.
Run VISTutor by double-clicking the shortcut in the installation folder.
To uninstall, delete the installation folder.

Downloading

All relevant licences are included in the downloaded files. No internet connection is required after the files have been downloaded. The pre-release ETAC package can be downloaded from the download button at the top of this page or from the Downloads page.