Slow Glass Scripting Language Introduction

Intentions

The scripting language is intended to be nearer to an English textual description rather than program. It is also expected to support only simple animation and effects, although careful design should be able to produce some impressive results.

Documentation Notes

I’ve tried to provide comprehensive documentation and to be consistent I have used the following conventions:

• Words in ordinary text are REQUIRED as part of the language
• Words in curly brackets are supplied by the user (usually names)
• (EXCEPT where the examples is discussing variable names, where the curly brackets mark the limits of the variable name)
• Words in square brackets are OPTIONAL and can be used to help readability - this is encouraged but not required
• Words in round brackets separated by vertical bars indicate options
• Words followed by ellipsis (…) can be repeated any number of times

Documentation Map

The Language documentation is organised as follows:

• Introduction - This document
• Overview - Important concepts
• Stage Directions - Stage setup and options
• Scenes - Splitting a script into sections
• Cues - Causing a scene to be performed
• Expressions - Simple logical evaluation for conditions
• Actions
  • System Actions - Interacting with the browser
  • Sprite Creation - Creating Sprites ready for display
  • Sprite Placement - Placing sprites on the canvas
  • Sprite Movement - Moving sprites around the canvas
  • Sprite Appearance - Changing how sprites appear on the canvas
  • Timing - Waiting for things to happen
  • Audio - Loading and playing audio files
• Variables
  • User Variables - Creating and using variables in scripts
  • Built-in Variables - Variables provided by the system
  • Sprite Variables - Sprite information in variables
  • Array Variables - Storing multiple values in variables
  • String Manipulation - Creating and modifying strings
  • Resource Variables - Creating variables from loaded resource files
• Advanced Topics
  • Groups - Grouping multiple sprites together
  • Flow Control - Decision making, loops and calls
  • Animation Methods - Animating sprites
  • Tags - Creating and using tags
  • Sprite Aspects - Applying waveforms to sprite features
  • Web Page Integration - Using SlowGlass in a HTML page
• Summary
  • Quick Reference - Brief reminder of all actions