Dexter Development Environment is a tool for creating JavaScript programs. In addition, it has special support for controlling the Dexter robot.

The User Interface

DDE has 4 panes.

• The Editor pane is in the upper left. Here's where you enter JavaScript to control Dexter. You can type or paste in code. You can also use the Learn JS▼, Insert▼, Series▼ and Jobs▼ menus in the menu bar to insert vanilla JavaScript or DDE-specific code.
• The Output pane is in the lower left. DDE displays useful information here.
• The Documentation pane is in the upper right.
• The Misc pane is in the lower right. It can contain a variety of content including a dialog for making instructions and a simulation of Dexter where you can test out Jobs without having a real Dexter.

Evaluation

To run JavaScript source code, you feed it to a function called eval. DDE makes this easy with its Eval button. If there is a text selection when you click the button, that text will be evaled. If there's not, the whole content of the Editor pane will be evaled.
By evaling early and often, you can test small snippets of JavaScript and make debugging your program easier.

Try this:

1. Select the following JavaScript source code:
   2 + 3 * 4
2. Click the Eval button in the header for the Output pane.
3. You should see 14 in the Output pane.
4. Select the code again but this time copy it with Ctrl-C (on Mac, cmd-C).
5. Paste it by clicking in the Editor pane and hitting Ctrl-V (on Mac, cmd-V)
6. Click the Eval button
7. You should see 14 printed again in the Output pane.
8. Select just 3 * 4 in the Editor pane.
9. Click the Eval button
10. You should see 12 in the Output pane.

If you don't know JavaScript, insert items from the Learn JS▼ menu and play.

Jobs

Dexter is controlled by writing a small app which we call a "Job". This wraps up a sequence of instructions to be run, one after another, along with some other information, for controlling a robot.

You can insert example Jobs from the Jobs▼ menu.

1. Clear your editor by selecting the text and hitting the DELETE or BACKSPACE key.
2. Choose Jobs Menu/Insert Example/Dexter-moving
3. Most of this text is comments explaining this Job.
4. Click the Eval button
5. Observe a new gray button in the Output pane header with the name of the Job that you just defined.
6. Click this button to start the Job
7. Observe an animation of Dexter in the Simulation pane.
8. The button changes colors to indicate the Job's status. It turns green when its Job is running and purple when its done. A tooltip on the button appears when you hover the mouse over it.
9. Clicking a Job's button will start it if its stopped, and stop it if its running.

Connecting to Dexter

is documented in the User Guide under Configure Dexter.

Getting Help

There's a LOT more documentation. We encourage you to read the User Guide. At the bare minimun, please click the ? in the upper right of the Doc pane for a list of tutorials, one of which, "Help System", explains DDE's numerous help facilities.