CompuServe Messages

<Ed, Just because a system doesn't use the "real" law of gravity doesn't mean that it might not be superior for producing "interesting" particle animations!> I am struggling with how to provide many options without overwhelming the users. Let me just dump some thoughts and problems as they come to mind. I can use all the help I can get! The program quadrupled in size when I added the capability to place the values used at the end of the animation. A friendly user interface could easily become 95% of the code and take up a lot of time that I could dedicate to creative features. I would like to continue using the POCO editor for data entry. It's an easy way to edit Poco, and seems equally well suited for editing data, EXCEPT that most of the time it doesn't use a monospaced font. It would be nice to be able to use one line for related values, such as the initial x pos, y pos, x vel, and y vel for one mass. But, if the data doesn't line up in columns, it becomes very confusing. It also wanted data entry to be obvious and simple to reduce data-entry errors. (You might have noticed I like to align the code to make certain types of errors stand out). < And you thought you weren't going to get any feedback!> I can't tell you how happy I was! Specially, since I may be discourang you all. I can't respond as quickly as I want while I am helping take care of a soft, cuddly baby, who goes crazy over particle system animations <g>. Please don't be discouraged by my delays. All input I get from you, or the other users, is very important to me. <By the way, you have said that you learned C from working in POCO – so obviously you have worked in some other structured language before, right? Your code is very well organized, the modularization is very good, I like your use of meaningful variable names, etc.> I have done a lot of programming. I am still using C like PL/I, or REXX (used in VM and OS/2). I'll send this now and continue tonight. I think you can guess why I have to stop! Ed