% FILE. . . . . /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 Tue Apr 02 09:32:41 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
Libs t1lib-x11 Rastenizer Library for Adobe Type Fonts (X11 test).

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
loads modules defined in the files:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- 'x_sudoku.lf' - a sudoku solver

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 GUI generated by the 'life_demo.lf'
program 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 correctly specified in 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 you will enjoy LIFE!

-hak

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