Can Alice be used to make interfaces to display data files or live data

[HAL-1701]

Can Alice be used to make display interfaces for data files or live data from the web (via 'sockets' or 'pipes') or perhaps directories of images or soundfiles or other output from other sourcings?

I have not downloaded Alice and looked around...

I don't see much talk of Alice being used to create rich interfaces to data.

A simple example is a "control panel" for USB-accessible hardware prototyping. Another example is multivariable display of complex data sourced live from the web (eg, stockdata as clouds or fish).

The world is getting away from graphs and sliders, to being able to display complex data in "generative audiovisual environments"... i hope Alice is not hampered in this department!

Comments on (and visions of) of Alice as Data Interface Builder would be nice. Is Alice fully able to deal with live data streams or various file formats (including various image and sound formats)?

-- Ian / HAL-1701

[DrJim]

Can Alice be used to make display interfaces for data files or live data from the web ... ... I hope Alice is not hampered in this department!-- Ian / HAL-1701

The only type of data Alice 2.0 can access from the web is a text file, and that requires using the Jython scripting capability which is not fully implemented. (See http://www.westga.edu/~drocco/alice/scripting.html and/or do a forum search for more details.)

Personally, I would not say Alice is "hampered" by this lack (though a bit more scripting capability would be nice :)). Getting into sockets, pipes, etc. would really detract from it's basic mission as a beginning teaching tool for OOP.

[DickBaldwin]

The only type of data Alice 2.0 can access from the web is a text file, and that requires using the Jython scripting capability which is not fully implemented. (See http://www.westga.edu/~drocco/alice/scripting.html (http://www.westga.edu/%7Edrocco/alice/scripting.html) and/or do a forum search for more details.)

Personally, I would not say Alice is "hampered" by this lack (though a bit more scripting capability would be nice :)). Getting into sockets, pipes, etc. would really detract from it's basic mission as a beginning teaching tool for OOP.

To expand a little on what DrJim has said, we are all anxiously awaiting the release of Alice 3.0. According to an earlier info document from CMU, "if you can do it in Java, you will be able to do it in Alice 3.0." Of course, that includes sockets, as well as almost everything else that you can do with most modern object-oriented programming languages.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm
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