2.1 Using the GUI Front-End to Ccaffeine

Note At this point, you will start using the tutorial-src code tree. If you're doing this tutorial as a self-study exercise, you'll need to make sure it has been built according to the instructions in Appendix F. For organized tutorials, this is generally done in advance by the tutorial instructors.

There is a graphical front-end for Ccaffeine (known as Ccaffeine GUI , or ``the GUI'' which provides a fairly simple visual programming metaphor for the assembly of applications using CCA components. In this exercise, we'll use the Ccaffeine GUI to assemble and run several different ``applications'' using the components already available in the tutorial-src tree.

Ccaffeine and its GUI are run as two separate processes, possibly on two different machines. Depending on the specific circumstances, there are a variety of ways to invoke the GUI and the Ccaffeine framework. Bocca generates two helper scripts in the project's utils subdirectory, which will serve most purposes. Which to use depends on whether the graphical display you're using (the ``GUI host '') is directly attached to the machine on which you're running the framework (the ``Ccaffeine host ''), or whether they're separated by a network link.