The following 5 messages contain a test release of the PostScript
Interactive Bug Eradication Routines (PSIBER).  They have been tested and
run under NeWS 1.1 and X11/NeWS Beta 2 on the Sun, and Grasshopper MacNeWS
1.1.  The file "introduction" contains documentation (the first page of
which is included in this message).

PSIBER has also been known as the CyberSpace Deck, or PSpike.  (I came up
with the latest contrived acronym since AutoDesk trademarked the word
CyberSpace).

The 5 messages contain a split-up compressed shar file.  In an empty
directory, reassemble the messages in order according to their subject
lines, stripping the mail headers.  Pass that through uudecode to get the
compressed shar file "cyber.shar.Z".  Uncompress that to get "cyber.shar".
Unpack that by typing "sh cyber.shar" (after reading it over meticulously
if you don't trust me!  ;-) Look at the "README" file, and load the stuff
into your NeWS server by typing "cyber".  It will read in an awful lot of
PostScript code, and finally let you shape its window.  Look at the file
"introduction" for help in navagating around.  There are some files in the
directory that contain yet-to-be-documented stuff.  There's quite a bit
more work to be done, but I would really appreciate you trying out what's
there and sending me impressions and comments.  Tell me what doesn't work,
and what you find to be useful, and any other criticisms or suggestions
that come to mind!

	-Don

========================================================================

The CyberSpace Deck Manual

  Don Hopkins		     Grasshopper Group		Last update
  don@brillig.umd.edu	     grass@toad.com		22 July 89

========================================================================

Introduction

The CyberSpace deck lets you graphically display and manipulate the many
PostScript data strutures, programs, and processes living in the virtual
memory space of NeWS.

The Network extensible Window System (NeWS) is a multitasking object
oriented PostScript programming environment.  NeWS programs and data
structures make up the window system kernel, the user interface
toolkit, and even entire applications.

The CyberSpace deck is one such application, written entirely in
PostScript, the result of an experiment in using a graphical programming
environment to construct a interactive visual user interface to itself.

It displays views of structured data objects in overlapping windows that
can be moved around on the screen, and manipulated with the mouse:  you
can copy and paste data structures from place to place, execute them,
edit them, open their substructures up to any depth, adjust the scale to
shrink and magnify parts of the display, and pop up menus of other useful
commands.  Deep or complex data structures can be more easily grasped by
applying various views to them.

There is a window onto a NeWS process, a PostScript interpreter with
which you can interact (as with an "executive").  PostScript is a stack
based language, so the window has a spike sticking up out of it,
representing the process's operand stack.  Objects on the process's stack
are displayed in windows with their tabs pinned on the spike.  (Figure
xxx) You can feed PostScript expressions to the interpreter by typing
them with the keyboard, or pointing and clicking at them with the mouse,
and the stack display will be dynamically updated to show the results.

Not only can you examine and manipulate the objects on the stack, but you
can also manipulate the stack directly with the mouse.  You can drag the
objects up and down the spike to change their order on the stack, and
drag them on and off the spike to push and pop them; you can take objects
off the spike and set them aside to refer to later, and close them into
icons so they don't take up as much screen space.

NeWS processes running in the same window server can be debugged using
the existing NeWS debug commands in harmony with the graphical stack
and object display.

The CyberSpace deck can be used as a "hands on" way to learn about
programming in PostScript and NeWS.  You can try out examples from
cookbooks and manuals, and explore and understand the environment with
the help of the interactive data structure display.