JavaDrivel Instructions

(You might want to print this page out.)

The Basics

The applet has three 'pages': the Read Book page (that's the one that you see first of all, and which displays the 'book' as it is created), the Edit Words page, and the Edit Sentences page.

You move between the pages by clicking the buttons at the bottom of the applet ('Read Book', 'Edit Words' and 'Edit Sentences'). The button for the page you are currently looking at will be disabled.

Right, now you can switch between pages. Try it out, then come back here again.

How It Works

Before we go on, you need to understand how JavaDrivel actually does its stuff.

Basically, it has a list of 'word types', which are called things like 'people' or 'objects'. Each type has a list of words attached to it, so the 'people' word type would have a list of people's names, and the 'objects' word type would have a list of objects.

These word types can be edited on the 'Edit Words' page, where you can add or delete word types, and add or delete words in the list of words attached to each word type. Go to the 'Edit Words' page now, and have a look. Select a word type from the drop-down list at the top of the applet, and in the 'Words' box underneath you will see a list of all the words that are currently in the list for that word type. You can add a new word by typing it in to the box at the bottom (where it helpfully says "To add a new word or phrase, type it here then click 'Accept' ") and clicking on the 'Accept' button beside it.

Try selecting the 'people' word type (from the drop-down list at the top), then add a new person.

Right. So much for word types -- you'll understand the point of them a bit better when we've covered the next bit, which is the sentence structures.

Click on the 'Edit Sentences' button, to see the page for editing sentence structures. There can be any number of these -- at the top of the applet are buttons to move back and forth between them.

In the middle, on the left hand side, is a list of word types. These are the same word types that were on the 'Edit Words' page. On the right hand side is a list of the word types used in the current sentence (when you click the '<' and '>' buttons at the top, you will see this list change). The way JavaDrivel works is that it randomly selects one of these sentence lists, then it works through the word types in the sentence list, and for each word type it selects a random word from the list of words attached to that word type. The trick, therefore, is to build a sentence structure out of word types in the correct order to produce meaningful sentences. To help you out, the applet displays an example of the kind of sentence that will be produced by the current sentence structure.

Example

All of this is easier to understand if you actually do it! So, make sure you have the 'Teaparty' book selected (if not, go back to the 'Read Book' page and select 'Teaparty' from the drop-down list, then come back to the 'Edit Sentences' page), and do the following:

First, click the 'New' button (near the middle of the applet). The 'Structure' list on the right-hand side should go blank (if it doesn't, try clicking the 'New' button again).

We'll create a sentence structure that produces sentences like 'The Mad Hatter throws a teacup' (Yes, there's already one which does this, but this is just an example, ok?).

The first word type, therefore, needs to be a person. In the word-type list on the left-hand side, find the 'people' entry, and click on it (it should now be highlighted). Then click on the 'Add' button in the middle. 'people' should appear in the structure list.

The next word type is a verb (such as 'throws'). In the word-type list, find 'transitive verbs' and click on it. If you are not familiar with grammatical terms, 'transitive' means that the verb needs some sort of 'object' to act on, which is of course what we want. Again, click the 'Add' button, and 'transitive verbs' should be added to the structure. If you select the wrong word type, click on the 'Remove' button -- this will remove the last entry from the structure list.

Finally, find the 'moveable objects' word type. Click on it, and click the 'Add' button.

And that's it. Our new sentence structure is finished, and will be used by the book.

One final point

You can't save your changes. If you leave the JavaDrivel webpage and come back again, your changes will have been lost. If you select another book, your changes will be lost.

Why?

Because this is Java. Java applets cannot save anything -- they are not allowed access to your computer in any shape or form. They cannot write data to your computer, they cannot read data from your computer. This is a deliberate feature of Java Applets, and designed to make them secure and safely useable in a web-page. Suppose Java Applets were allowed to access your computer. They could search for hidden information. They could copy viruses onto your computer. They could, in theory, delete everything on your computer. But they can't. So don't be too sad that you can't save your wonderful JavaDrivel masterpieces -- count it a small price to pay for peace of mind!