% FILE. . . . . c:/cygwin/home/hak/life/demo/READ.ME
% EDIT BY . . . Hassan Ait-Kaci
% ON MACHINE. . Hak-Laptop
% STARTED ON. . Thu Mar 28 18:15:24 2013

% Last modified on Fri Mar 29 10:53:28 2013 by hak

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This directory contains several examples of LIFE programs.

If you start wild_life in this directory, it will load the .wild_life
file that is in it, which in turn loads a packaged demo using the X
windows interface. For this packaged demo to work, you must have of
course a running X window server and the necessary fonts. We have tested
this on cygwin/X. If you want to do the same, make sure that you install
the cygwin package containing adobe fonts for X11, which - strangely
enough - is not part of the X11 set of packages on cygwin but in the
Rastenizer Library for Adobe Type Fonts (X11 test program).

This X11-based demo also uses sounds that are in audio files in the
Sounds subdirectory and relies on winamp, which you can install from
http://www.winamp.com/ if you don't have it already. You may have to
edit the file sounds.lf to specify the correct path for its executable.
It now uses the the default path: "C:/Program Files (x86)/Winamp/winamp".
If you do edit it, please make sure to escape with a backslash ('\') any
special characters such as space, parentheses, and backslash itself (see
the current specified path in sounds.lf for how this looks for the path
above.

This X11 LIFE demo is started by the code in the file life_demo.lf and
contains:

- a demo of the LIFE/X graphical tool kit showing widgets and actions
  associated to them (ex_tools.lf)

- a demo of a color editor using RGB values (color_editor.lf)

- the 8 queens puzzle (just click on the chessboard); you can also
  change the size of the chessboard (queens.lf)

- a bin-packing problem (placing small boxes in a big one). Just click
  in the window, which is the big box (boxes.lf)

- a flower drawing demo based on the book "The Algorithmic Beauty of
  Plants" - see the comments in the source file (flowers.lf)

- two graphical displays for task scheduling constraint problems
  (x_schedule.lf)

- the (in)famous "Who owns the zebra?" puzzle - read the comments in the
  source file for the clues (x_zebra.lf)

- the classical "SEND+MORE=MONEY" puzzle (crypt.lf)

- the classic French TV math puzzle "Des chiffres et des lettres"
  (x_mathwiz.lf)

- a sudoku solver (x_sudoku.lf)

The user manual is in MANUAL.pdf, and a set of tutorial slides on LIFE
is in TUTORIAL.pdf. You can view these files by clicking on the buttons
to that effect in the life_demo.lf demo or simply open the pdf files
manually. In order to do the former (through the demo buttons), you may
have to ensure that your PDF reader program file path is correct (see
the pdf_display.lf file).

There are also several LIFE program examples that do not use the X11
interface and can therefore be loaded and run as such. Just look at the
source files for instructions. In general, loading a file 'foo.lf'
defined as a module is done at the top level as 'import("foo")?'.

Most of the life program sources are well-commented, so you are
encouraged to look as the code for more information.

If you have any questions, please mail me at "hak@acm.org".

I hope that will enjoy LIFE!

-hak
