COSC 341: Human Computer Interaction

A1: A Graphical User Interface [22 pts]

Due date: Sept 24, 2017, 9:00am

What to submit:

A zip folder with:

Your source code
An executable of your program that works on a school computer
Note: if it requires any additional file such as images, then make sure everything is placed within the same folder and your work does not require any installation on our part
A plain text file (.txt) of the time logs generated by your program
A plain text file (.txt) indicating any known bugs or incomplete functions in your program

Any help you got and any code you are using from downloaded sources must be cited within your code. Online sources must have accompanying URLs.

Overview

This is a programming assignment where you will build a simple GUI with some event detection and data collection capabilities. Assignment 2 will take the program you build here and add on additional interaction functionalities. In order to maintain flexibility in your code here, you may wish to read ahead on the A2 specs to see what you have to do next.

Note: You may choose to code in any programming language you want, so long as the executable can run without errors on the school computers in the lab where you will be required to run it for data collection purposes. It is your responsibility to test this in the labs well in advance of each milestone due date.

Specific Requirements

Your program must create a GUI that expands to the full screen
Your GUI will have a basic drop down menu, with an option to exit the program
Your program understands mouse and time events
There is a small button at the top of the screen, horizontally centered, labeled "Start"
If a user clicks on the Start button, a timer starts, and the Start button cannot be clicked on again
The central pane will have a row of 5 square icons displayed near the bottom of the screen and centered horizontally, with each icon being 50 pixels x 50 pixels.
Below are two screenshots from my sample solution:
If a user clicks on one of the 5 icons, the timer stops, and the Start button can be clicked on once again
The time in milliseconds from the timer (after an icon is selected) is kept in memory (and will be logged to a file at the end of the program)
A user should be able to carry out a series of 50 consecutive Start-Icon clicks without the program crashing
Upon exiting the program, all the data is written to a file and saved with the filename consisting of the current timestamp. A partial log file would look like this:
```
  1670
  1030
  858
  906
  ...
  
```
where each row is a trial and the number in a row is the task completion time for that trial.

Resources

Personal favourite reference for Java Swing tutorials
Understainding how GroupLayout works in Java Swing

Grading Criteria

[6 pts] A working GUI with the simple widgets as required
[8 pts] The program correctly collects click times in milliseconds
[3 pts] The program does not crash after 50 trials, and successfully exits
[3 pts] The times are logged in a plain text file (.txt)
[2 pts] Documentation as required in your submission